| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: blue flames which suddenly dart up and babble on the hearth. We
interpret as we please the strong, harsh tones of a "burgundian."
Here I must pause to put before all ignorant persons an explanation of
that word, derived from a very distinguished etymologist who wishes
his name kept secret.
"Burgundian" is the name given, since the reign of Charles VI., to
those noisy detonations, the result of which is to fling upon the
carpet or the clothes a little coal or ember, the trifling nucleus of
a conflagration. Heat or fire releases, they say, a bubble of air left
in the heart of the wood by a gnawing worm. "Inde amor, inde
burgundus." We tremble when we see the structure we had so carefully
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: Theology, again, had three sections--Scholastic, Canonical, and
Mystic. It would be wearisome to give an account of the attributes of
each section of the science, since one only, namely, Mystic, is the
subject of this /Etude/.
Mystical Theology included the whole of Divine Revelation and the
elucidation of the Mysteries. And this branch of ancient theology has
been secretly preserved with reverence even to our own day; Jacob
Boehm, Swendenborg, Martinez Pasqualis, Saint-Martin, Molinos, Madame
Guyon, Madame Bourignon, and Madame Krudener, the extensive sect of
the Ecstatics, and that of the Illuminati, have at different periods
duly treasured the doctrines of this science, of which the aim is
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: just quelled--a triumph to which we owe some splendid fetes. Though a
Liberal, and doubtless a man of the people, he has awakened my
interest: I fancy that he must have been condemned to death. I make
him talk for the purpose of getting at his secret; but he is of a
truly Castilian taciturnity, proud as though he were Gonsalvo di
Cordova, and nevertheless angelic in his patience and gentleness. His
pride is not irritable like Miss Griffith's, it belongs to his inner
nature; he forces us to civility because his own manners are so
perfect, and holds us at a distance by the respect he shows us. My
father declares that there is a great deal of the nobleman in Senor
Henarez, whom, among ourselves, he calls in fun Don Henarez.
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