| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: de Merret was a kind woman and very pleasant, who had no doubt
sometimes to put up with her husband's tantrums. But though he was
rather haughty, we were fond of him. After all, it was his place to
behave so. When a man is a born nobleman, you see----'
" 'Still, there must have been some catastrophe for Monsieur and
Madame de Merret to part so violently?'
" 'I did not say there was any catastrophe, sir. I know nothing about
it.'
" 'Indeed. Well, now, I am sure you know everything.'
" 'Well, sir, I will tell you the whole story.--When I saw Monsieur
Regnault go up to see you, it struck me that he would speak to you
La Grande Breteche |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: purchasing Mexican scrip, and thereby became the proprietor of a
province; which, however, so far as Peter could find out, was
situated where he might have had an empire for the same
money,--in the clouds. From a search after this valuable real
estate Peter returned so gaunt and threadbare that, on reaching
New England, the scarecrows in the cornfields beckoned to him, as
he passed by. "They did but flutter in the wind," quoth Peter
Goldthwaite. No, Peter, they beckoned, for the scarecrows knew
their brother!
At the period of our story his whole visible income would not
have paid the tax of the old mansion in which we find him. It was
Twice Told Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: otherwise have done simply of his own accord? Of all forms of tyranny,
the most odious is that which constantly robs the soul of the merit of
its thoughts and deeds. It has to abdicate without having reigned. The
word we are readiest to speak, the feelings we most love to express,
die when we are commanded to utter them.
Ere long the young man ceased to invite his friends, to give parties
or dinners; the house might have been shrouded in crape. A house where
the mistress is a bigot has an atmosphere of its own. The servants,
who are, of course, under her immediate control, are chosen among a
class who call themselves pious, and who have an unmistakable
physiognomy. Just as the jolliest fellow alive, when he joins the
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