| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: otherwise buried beneath the precautions of cold demeanor, and then
she is charming. She does not seek success, but she obtains it. We
find that for which we do not seek: that saying is so often true that
some day it will be turned into a proverb. It is, in fact, the moral
of this adventure, which I should not allow myself to tell if it were
not echoing at the present moment through all the salons of Paris.
The Marquise de Listomere danced, about a month ago, with a young man
as modest as he is lively, full of good qualities, but exhibiting,
chiefly, his defects. He is ardent, but he laughs at ardor; he has
talent, and he hides it; he plays the learned man with aristocrats,
and the aristocrat with learned men. Eugene de Rastignac is one of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: horror and surprise, which burst from his followers. The
Children of the Mist, encouraged in proportion to the alarm this
first success had caused among the pursuers, echoed back the
clamour with a loud and shrill yell of exultation, and, showing
themselves on the brow of the precipice, with wild cries and
vindictive gestures, endeavoured to impress on their enemies a
sense at once of their courage, their numbers, and their state of
defence. Even Captain Dalgetty's military prudence did not
prevent his rising up, and calling out to Ranald, more loud than
prudence warranted, "CAROCCO, comrade, as the Spaniard says! The
long-bow for ever! In my poor apprehension now, were you to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: of colored paper inscribed with poems of praise. He himself became very
old,-- outliving all his children; and there was nothing in the world left
for him to live except that tree. And lo! in the summer of a certain year,
the tree withered and died!
Exceedingly the old man sorrowed for his tree. Then kind neighbors found
for him a young and beautiful cherry-tree, and planted it in his garden,--
hoping thus to comfort him. And he thanked them, and pretended to be glad.
But really his heart was full of pain; for he had loved the old tree so
well that nothing could have consoled him for the loss of it.
At last there came to him a happy thought: he remembered a way by which
the perishing tree might be saved. (It was the sixteenth day of the first
Kwaidan |
