| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: Matifat in lieu of cash.
"They had not long to wait for the crash. The firm of Claparon did
business on too large a scale, the capital was locked up, the concern
ceased to serve its purposes, or to pay dividends, though the
speculations were sound. These misfortunes coincided with the events
of 1827. In 1829 it was too well known that Claparon was a man of
straw set up by the two giants; he fell from his pedestal. Shares that
had fetched twelve hundred and fifty francs fell to four hundred,
though intrinsically they were worth six. Nucingen, knowing their
value, bought them up at four.
"Meanwhile the little Baroness d'Aldrigger had sold out of the mines
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: schoolboys on the bench of disgrace? 'Tis an Omorcan superstition;
a rule without a reason; a venerable, idiotic fashion invented to
repress lively spirits and put a premium on stupidity.
For my part, I incline rather to the opinion of the Neapolitan
fishermen who maintain that a certain amount of noise, of certain
kinds, is likely to improve the fishing, and who have a particular
song, very sweet and charming, which they sing to draw the fishes
around them. It is narrated, likewise, of the good St. Brandan,
that on his notable voyage from Ireland in search of Paradise, he
chanted the service for St. Peter's day so pleasantly that a
subaqueous audience of all sorts and sizes was attracted, insomuch
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: accumulated in one brain, even that mighty brain could not invent a
third mode of being without suppressing both Matter and God. Let human
philosophies pile mountain upon mountain of words and of ideas, let
religions accumulate images and beliefs, revelations and mysteries,
you must face at last this terrible dilemma and choose between the two
propositions which compose it; you have no option, and one as much as
the other leads human reason to Doubt.
"The problem thus established, what signifies Spirit or Matter? Why
trouble about the march of the worlds in one direction or in another,
since the Being who guides them is shown to be an absurdity? Why
continue to ask whether man is approaching heaven or receding from it,
Seraphita |
