| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: courtesan with a view to earning its profits, and at the same time to
bear the simple garb of a respectable middle-class wife. Vice does not
triumph so easily; it resembles genius in so far that they both need a
concurrence of favorable conditions to develop the coalition of
fortune and gifts. Eliminate the strange prologue of the Revolution,
and the Emperor would never have existed; he would have been no more
than a second edition of Fabert. Venal beauty, if it finds no
amateurs, no celebrity, no cross of dishonor earned by squandering
men's fortunes, is Correggio in a hay-loft, is genius starving in a
garret. Lais, in Paris, must first and foremost find a rich man mad
enough to pay her price. She must keep up a very elegant style, for
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Richard III by William Shakespeare: Go, muster men. My counsel is my shield.
We must be brief when traitors brave the field. Exeunt
SCENE 4.
London. Before the palace
Enter old QUEEN MARGARET
QUEEN MARGARET. So now prosperity begins to mellow
And drop into the rotten mouth of death.
Here in these confines slily have I lurk'd
To watch the waning of mine enemies.
A dire induction am I witness to,
And will to France, hoping the consequence
Richard III |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: Was no one with her when she fell? . . .
We eddy about her, move away in silence.
We hear slow tollings of a bell.
III. PALIMPSEST: A DECEITFUL PORTRAIT
Well, as you say, we live for small horizons:
We move in crowds, we flow and talk together,
Seeing so many eyes and hands and faces,
So many mouths, and all with secret meanings,--
Yet know so little of them; only seeing
The small bright circle of our consciousness,
Beyond which lies the dark. Some few we know--
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