| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: of the nervous sadness that lays hold upon you save in the solitude of
the spot, the gloomy look of the houses, and the great deserted
mansions. This island, the ghost of /fermiers-generaux/, is the Venice
of Paris. The Place de la Bourse is voluble, busy, degraded; it is
never fine except by moonlight at two in the morning. By day it is
Paris epitomized; by night it is a dream of Greece. The rue
Traversiere-Saint-Honore--is not that a villainous street? Look at the
wretched little houses with two windows on a floor, where vice, crime,
and misery abound. The narrow streets exposed to the north, where the
sun never comes more than three or four times a year, are the
cut-throat streets which murder with impunity; the authorities of the
Ferragus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: desperate and intrepid, shouted to the Hollando-Belgians: "Nassau!
Brunswick! Never retreat!" Hill, having been weakened, had come up
to the support of Wellington; Picton was dead. At the very moment
when the English had captured from the French the flag of the 105th
of the line, the French had killed the English general, Picton, with a
bullet through the head. The battle had, for Wellington, two bases
of action, Hougomont and La Haie-Sainte; Hougomont still held out,
but was on fire; La Haie-Sainte was taken. Of the German battalion
which defended it, only forty-two men survived; all the officers,
except five, were either dead or captured. Three thousand combatants
had been massacred in that barn. A sergeant of the English Guards,
Les Miserables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: "Yes, for a good action badly done! That is half a crime," said
Crevel, much pleased with his epigram.
"Doing good, my dear Crevel, does not mean sparing money out of a
purse that is bursting with it; it means enduring privations to be
generous, suffering for liberality! It is being prepared for
ingratitude! Heaven does not see the charity that costs us nothing--"
"Saints, madame, may if they please go to the workhouse; they know
that it is for them the door of heaven. For my part, I am worldly-
minded; I fear God, but yet more I fear the hell of poverty. To be
destitute is the last depth of misfortune in society as now
constituted. I am a man of my time; I respect money."
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