| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: no claim on certain property which was to come to her,--they gave it
all up to the grandmother. The moral of it was, my good friend, that
the devil punishes those who try to benefit others."
"Ah! that is quite another story from the one old Frappier told me."
"Frappier consults his wine-cellar more than he does his memory,"
remarked another of Mademoiselle Rogron's visitors.
"But that old priest, Monsieur Habert says--"
"Oh, he! don't you know why?"
"No."
"He wanted to marry his sister to Monsieur Rogron, the receiver-
general."
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: Ninth to Wiltshire, and sing it you shall!" roared Henchard.
"Not a single one of all the droning crew of ye goes out of
this room till that Psalm is sung!" He slipped off the
table, seized the poker, and going to the door placed his
back against it. "Now then, go ahead, if you don't wish to
have your cust pates broke!"
"Don't 'ee, don't'ee take on so!--As 'tis the Sabbath-day,
and 'tis Servant David's words and not ours, perhaps we
don't mind for once, hey?" said one of the terrified choir,
looking round upon the rest. So the instruments were tuned
and the comminatory verses sung.
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: herself and of Lambert.
"Louis must, no doubt, appear to be mad," said she. "But he is not, if
the term mad ought only to be used in speaking of those whose brain is
for some unknown cause diseased, and who can show no reason in their
actions. Everything in my husband is perfectly balanced. Though he did
not actively recognize you, it is not that he did not see you. He has
succeeded in detaching himself from his body, and discerns us under
some other aspect--what that is, I know not. When he speaks, he utters
wondrous things. Only it often happens that he concludes in speech an
idea that had its beginning in his mind; or he may begin a sentence
and finish it in thought. To other men he seems insane; to me, living
Louis Lambert |
