| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: delivered from this favour, and slip out of the room, since the water
was in his cellars, and he was about to lose the key of his back-door.
All the guests were in a state of not knowing how to arrest the
progress of the fecal matter to which nature has given, even more than
to water, the property of finding a certain level. Their substances
modified themselves and glided working downward, like those insects
who demand to be let out of their cocoons, raging, tormenting, and
ungrateful to the higher powers; for nothing is so ignorant, so
insolent as those cursed objects, and they are importunate like all
things detained to whom one owes liberty. So they slipped at every
turn like eels out of a net, and each one had need of great efforts
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: But now, drawing back to the edge of the table, gradually lower
your eye (thus bringing yourself more and more into the condition of
the inhabitants of Flatland), and you will find the penny becoming
more and more oval to your view, and at last when you have placed
your eye exactly on the edge of the table (so that you are,
as it were, actually a Flatlander) the penny will then have ceased
to appear oval at all, and will have become, so far as you can see,
a straight line.
The same thing would happen if you were to treat in the same way
a Triangle, or Square, or any other figure cut out of pasteboard.
As soon as you look at it with your eye on the edge on the table,
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: affair.
"You then and there made two mortal enemies of Lousteau and Nathan,"
he said. "I gave you good advice, and you took no notice of it. You
gave praise, you did them a good turn--you will be well punished for
your kindness. Florine and Coralie will never live in peace on the
same stage; both will wish to be first. You can only defend Coralie in
our papers; and Nathan not only has a pull as a dramatic author, he
can control the dramatic criticism in the Liberal newspapers. He has
been a journalist a little longer than you!"
The words responded to Lucien's inward misgivings. Neither Nathan nor
Gaillard was treating him with the frankness which he had a right to
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