| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: - When the poor hero flounders in despair,
Some dear lost uncle turns up millionnaire, -
Clasps the young scapegrace with paternal joy,
Sobs on his neck, "MY BOY! MY BOY!! MY BOY!!!"
Ours, then, sweet friends, the real world to-night.
Of love that conquers in disaster's spite.
Ladies, attend! While woful cares and doubt
Wrong the soft passion in the world without,
Though fortune scowl, though prudence interfere,
One thing is certain: Love will triumph here!
Lords of creation, whom your ladies rule, -
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: so except at night. Here is the letter which love dictated to her
while all the world was sleeping:--
To Monsieur de Canalis,--Ah! my friend, my well-beloved! What
atrocious falsehoods those portraits in the shop-windows are! And
I, who made that horrible lithograph my joy!--I am humbled at the
thought of loving one so handsome. No; it is impossible that those
Parisian women are so stupid as not to have seen their dreams
fulfilled in you. You neglected! you unloved! I do not believe a
word of all that you have written me about your lonely and obscure
life, your hunger for an idol,--sought in vain until now. You have
been too well loved, monsieur; your brow, white and smooth as a
Modeste Mignon |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: "I thought you were angry with me, madame; you sent me
away."
"I do not send you away, but you have had the small-pox and
I am afraid that sitting up late may tire you."
"You had no fears of my being tired when you ordered me to
go to the palace to-day to pass the odious decrees which
have raised the people to rebellion."
"Sire!" interposed Laporte, in order to turn the subject,
"to whom does your majesty wish me to give the candle?"
"To any one, Laporte," the child said; and then added in a
loud voice, "to any one except Mancini."
Twenty Years After |
