| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: say the sun shines in a fog; he's as gloomy as a cloudy day."
"But," I said to him, "you excite our curiosity without satisfying it.
Do you know what brought him there? Was it grief, or repentance; is it
a mania; is it crime, is it--"
"Eh, monsieur, there's no one but my father and I who know the real
truth. My late mother was servant in the family of a lawyer to whom
Cambremer told all by order of the priest, who wouldn't give him
absolution until he had done so--at least, that's what the folks of
the port say. My poor mother overheard Cambremer without trying to;
the lawyer's kitchen was close to the office, and that's how she
heard. She's dead, and so is the lawyer. My mother made us promise, my
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: states in question, and of the paramount importance of their
function.
First of all, then, I ask, What does the expression "mystical
states of consciousness" mean? How do we part off mystical
states from other states?
The words "mysticism" and "mystical" are often used as terms of
mere reproach, to throw at any opinion which we regard as vague
and vast and sentimental, and without a base in either facts or
logic. For some writers a "mystic" is any person who believes in
thought-transference, or spirit-return. Employed in this way the
word has little value: there are too many less ambiguous
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: he, in spite of such obvious disadvantages, to possess really
exquisite manners and a distinguished air? The problem is solved
partly by the care and elegance of his dress, and partly by the
training given him by his mother, a Radziwill. His courage amounted to
daring, but his mind was not more than was needed for the ephemeral
talk and pleasantry of Parisian conversation. And yet it would have
been difficult to find among the young men of fashion in Paris a
single one who was his superior. Young men talk a great deal too much
in these days of horses, money, taxes, deputies; French CONVERSATION
is no longer what it was. Brilliancy of mind needs leisure and certain
social inequalities to bring it out. There is, probably, more real
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