| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: took me with him in a post-chaise. Without a word to me, he had
had my luggage packed and put up behind the chaise with his own,
and so he carried me off. I did not realize what I was doing
until the town had disappeared and the solitude of the road
recalled to me the emptiness of my heart. Then my tears again
began to flow.
My father had realized that words, even from him, would do
nothing to console me, and he let me weep without saying a word,
only sometimes pressing my hand, as if to remind me that I had a
friend at my side.
At night I slept a little. I dreamed of Marguerite.
Camille |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: she herself could give up was required to make me quit at all. It
adds to the gratitude I owe her on other grounds that she kindly
allows me to transcribe from my letters a few of the passages in
which that hateful sojourn is candidly commemorated.
CHAPTER IX.
"I SUPPOSE I ought to enjoy the joke of what's going on here," I
wrote, "but somehow it doesn't amuse me. Pessimism on the contrary
possesses me and cynicism deeply engages. I positively feel my own
flesh sore from the brass nails in Neil Paraday's social harness.
The house is full of people who like him, as they mention, awfully,
and with whom his talent for talking nonsense has prodigious
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: since these are of a kind the simplest and most evident, I should, by
publishing them, do much the same as if I were to throw open the windows,
and allow the light of day to enter the cave into which the combatants had
descended. But even superior men have no reason for any great anxiety to
know these principles, for if what they desire is to be able to speak of
all things, and to acquire a reputation for learning, they will gain their
end more easily by remaining satisfied with the appearance of truth, which
can be found without much difficulty in all sorts of matters, than by
seeking the truth itself which unfolds itself but slowly and that only in
some departments, while it obliges us, when we have to speak of others,
freely to confess our ignorance. If, however, they prefer the knowledge of
Reason Discourse |
