| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: way of conversation, entertainment, or simple familiarity, he
must either become like them, or change them to his own fashion.
A live coal placed next a dead one will either kindle that or be
quenched by it. Such being the risk, it is well to be cautious in
admitting intimacies of this sort, remembering that one cannot
rub shoulders with a soot-stained man without sharing the soot
oneself. What will you do, supposing the talk turns on
gladiators, or horses, or prize-fighters, or (what is worse) on
persons, condemning this and that, approving the other? Or
suppose a man sneers and jeers or shows a malignant temper? Has
any among us the skill of the lute-player, who knows at the first
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: condition that he shall deliver the /Monkey's Head/, by Goya, to
my cousin, President Camusot; a /Flower-piece/, the tulips, by
Abraham Mignon, to M. Trognon, notary (whom I appoint as my
executor): and allow Mme. Cibot, who has acted as my housekeeper
for ten years, the sum of two hundred francs per annum.
"Finally, my friend Schmucke is to give the /Descent from the
Cross/, Ruben's sketch for his great picture at Antwerp, to adorn
a chapel in the parish church, in grateful acknowledgment of M.
Duplanty's kindness to me; for to him I owe it that I can die as a
Christian and a Catholic."--So ran the will.
"This is ruin!" mused Fraisier, "the ruin of all my hopes. Ha! I begin
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: to wait the birth of a second son who might be healthy and vigorous
before getting rid of his wife and first-born. He saw neither wife nor
child; he saw the estates only, and hatred was softened by ambition.
The mother, who knew his nature, was even more surprised than the
bonesetter, and she still retained her instinctive fears, showing them
at times openly, for the courage of mothers seemed suddenly to have
doubled her strength.
CHAPTER III
THE MOTHER'S LOVE
For several days the count remained assiduously beside his wife,
showing her attentions to which self-interest imparted a sort of
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