| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: work, as if he had said to himself, "I have lost my paper-basket!"
"Why, madame, may we not think him happy in having a lovely wife,
happy in her decorating his paper-baskets so charmingly? The colors
are red and black, like Robin Goodfellow. If ever I marry, I only hope
that twelve years after, my wife's embroidered baskets may still be
for me."
"And why should they not be for you?" said the lady, fixing her fine
gray eyes, full of invitation, on Etienne's face.
"Parisians believe in nothing," said the lawyer bitterly. "The virtue
of women is doubted above all things with terrible insolence. Yes, for
some time past the books you have written, you Paris authors, your
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: who were not without some taste. In spite of the entreaties of these
artists, Mademoiselle Cormon refused to employ the airy deceits of
elegance; she chose to be substantial in all things, flesh and
feathers. But perhaps the heavy fashion of her gowns was best suited
to her cast of countenance. Let those laugh who will at this poor
girl; you would have thought her sublime, O generous souls! who care
but little what form true feeling takes, but admire it where it IS.
Here some light-minded person may exclaim against the truth of this
statement; they will say that there is not in all France a girl so
silly as to be ignorant of the art of angling for men; that
Mademoiselle Cormon is one of those monstrous exceptions which
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: walk they took together: "Distrust that lean stick of a Troubert,--
Sixtus the Fifth reduced to the limits of a bishopric!"
Such was the friend, the abiding guest of Mademoiselle Gamard, who now
came, the morning after the old maid had, as it were, declared war
against the poor vicar, to pay his brother a visit and show him marks
of friendship.
"You must excuse Marianne," said the canon, as the woman entered. "I
suppose she went first to my rooms. They are very damp, and I coughed
all night. You are most healthily situated here," he added, looking up
at the cornice.
"Yes; I am lodged like a canon," replied Birotteau.
|
