| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: Gotthold said nothing, but he looked down and smoothed his chin.
'You disapprove?' cried Otto. 'You are a weather-cock.'
'On the contrary,' replied the Doctor. 'My observation has
confirmed my fears. It will not do, Otto, not do.'
'What will not do?' demanded the Prince, with a sickening stab of
pain.
'None of it,' answered Gotthold. 'You are unfitted for a life of
action; you lack the stamina, the habit, the restraint, the
patience. Your wife is greatly better, vastly better; and though
she is in bad hands, displays a very different aptitude. She is a
woman of affairs; you are - dear boy, you are yourself. I bid you
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: reappeared in the nineteenth century to claim honor for the
masterpieces of the seventeenth. Flowers perfumed these rooms so full
of good taste and of exquisite things, where each detail was a work of
art well placed and well surrounded, and where Madame Rabourdin,
dressed with that natural simplicity which artists alone attain, gave
the impression of a woman accustomed to such elegancies, though she
never spoke of them, but allowed the charms of her mind to complete
the effect produced upon her guests by these delightful surroundings.
Thanks to her father, Celestine was able to make society talk of her
as soon as the rococo became fashionable.
Accustomed as des Lupeaulx was to false as well as real magnificence
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: prey, after waiting for the day when the extravagance of the Duchesse
de Maufrigneuse culminated in the sale of that splendid property.
Madame Piedefer came to live with her daughter. The combined fortunes
of Monsieur de la Baudraye and his mother-in-law, who had been content
to accept an annuity of twelve hundred francs on the lands of La
Hautoy which she handed over to him, amounted to an acknowledged
income of about fifteen thousand francs.
During the early days of her married life, Dinah had effected some
alterations which had made the house at La Baudraye a very pleasant
residence. She turned a spacious forecourt into a formal garden,
pulling down wine-stores, presses, and shabby outhouses. Behind the
The Muse of the Department |
