| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: In the evening he went up to the traveller's room carrying pens, ink,
and paper.
"What have you got there?" asked Gaudissart.
"If you are going to fight to-morrow," answered Mitouflet, "you had
better make some settlement of your affairs; and perhaps you have
letters to write,--we all have beings who are dear to us. Writing
doesn't kill, you know. Are you a good swordsman? Would you like to
get your hand in? I have some foils."
"Yes, gladly."
Mitouflet returned with foils and masks.
"Now, then, let us see what you can do."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: still. Beyond, the sea hemmed in this page of Nature, written by the
greatest of poets, Chance; to whom the wild luxuriance of creation
when apparently abandoned to itself is owing.
The village of Jarvis was a lost point in the landscape, in this
immensity of Nature, sublime at this moment like all things else of
ephemeral life which present a fleeting image of perfection; for, by a
law fatal to no eyes but our own, creations which appear complete--the
love of our heart and the desire of our eyes--have but one spring-tide
here below. Standing on this breast-work of rock these three persons
might well suppose themselves alone in the universe.
"What beauty!" cried Wilfrid.
Seraphita |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: been no loser by the exchange, for so much was I hated by the
Abyssinian monks that they would have thought no expense too great
to have gotten me into their hands, that they might have glutted
their revenge by putting me to the most painful death they could
have invented. Happily I found means to retire out of this
dangerous place, and was followed by the viceroy almost to Fremona,
who, being disappointed, desired me either to visit him at his camp,
or appoint a place where we might confer. I made many excuses, but
at length agreed to meet him at a place near Fremona, bringing each
of us only three companions. I did not doubt but he would bring
more, and so he did, but found that I was upon my guard, and that my
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