| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: cruel miasmas into stuffy back-kitchens where there is little air,
realize that, apart from this pestilence, the forty thousand houses of
this great city have their foundations in filth, which the powers that
be have not yet seriously attempted to enclose with mortar walls solid
enough to prevent even the most fetid mud from filtering through the
soil, poisoning the wells, and maintaining subterraneously to Lutetia
the tradition of her celebrated name. Half of Paris sleeps amidst the
putrid exhalations of courts and streets and sewers. But let us turn
to the vast saloons, gilded and airy; the hotels in their gardens, the
rich, indolent, happy moneyed world. There the faces are lined and
scarred with vanity. There nothing is real. To seek for pleasure is it
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: sovereign, the public often see them grand, and noble, and generous,
embroidered with virtues, adorned with fine language, full of
admirable qualities. What a horrible jest it is!--and the world is
surprised, sometimes, at the caustic smile of certain women, at their
air of superiority to their husbands, and their indifference--"
She let her hand fall along the arm of her chair, without ending her
sentence, but the gesture admirably completed the speech. She saw
d'Arthez watching her flexible figure, gracefully bending in the
depths of her easy-chair, noting the folds of her gown, and the pretty
little ruffle which sported on her breast,--one of those audacities of
the toilet that are suited only to slender waists,--and she resumed
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: back and shut her eyes beneath his kisses. She knew now
that she could never give him up.
Nevertheless she asked him, the next morning, to let her go
back alone to Givre. She wanted time to think. She was
convinced that what had happened was inevitable, that she
and Darrow belonged to each other, and that he was right in
saying no past folly could ever put them asunder. If there
was a shade of difference in her feeling for him it was that
of an added intensity. She felt restless, insecure out of
his sight: she had a sense of incompleteness, of passionate
dependence, that was somehow at variance with her own
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