| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: Tynedale and Seacombe for my education; but as I grew up, and
heard by degrees of the persevering hostility, the hatred till
death evinced by them against my father--of the sufferings of my
mother--of all the wrongs, in short, of our house--then did I
conceive shame of the dependence in which I lived, and form a
resolution no more to take bread from hands which had refused to
minister to the necessities of my dying mother. It was by these
feelings I was influenced when I refused the Rectory of
Seacombe, and the union with one of my patrician cousins.
"An irreparable breach thus being effected between my uncles and
myself, I wrote to Edward; told him what had occurred, and
The Professor |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: gave her a really royal look; by the refinement of her features,
resembling the noble features of Andrea del Sarto's heads; by the
outline of her face, the setting of her eyes; and by those velvet eyes
themselves, which spoke of the rapture of a woman dreaming of
happiness, still pure though loving, at once attractive and dignified.
Instead of /Mose/, in which la Tinti was to have appeared with
Genovese, /Il Barbiere/ was given, and the tenor was to sing without
the celebrated prima donna. The manager announced that he had been
obliged to change the opera in consequence of la Tinti's being ill;
and the Duke was not to be seen in the theatre.
Was this a clever trick on the part of the management, to secure two
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: appreciate the imperceptible lights and shades which color a woman's
face and vary it. There comes a moment when, content with her toilet,
pleased with her own wit, delighted to be admired, and feeling herself
the queen of a salon full of remarkable men who smile to her, the
Parisian woman reaches a full consciousness of her grace and charm;
her beauty is enhanced by the looks she gathers in,--a mute homage
which she transfers with subtle glances to the man she loves. At
moments like these a woman is invested with supernatural power and
becomes a magician, a charmer, without herself knowing that she is
one; involuntarily she inspires the love that fills her own bosom; her
smiles and glances fascinate. If this condition, which comes from the
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