| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: prompting leads elderly spinsters to surround themselves with dreary
relics of the past. But the lovely Piedmontese must have the newest
and latest fashions, and all that was daintiest and prettiest in
stuffs for hangings, in silks or jewelry, in fine china and other
brittle and fragile wares. She asked for nothing; but when she was
called upon to make a choice, when Castanier asked her, "Which do you
like?" she would answer, "Why, this is the nicest!" Love never counts
the cost, and Castanier therefore always took the "nicest."
When once the standard had been set up, there was nothing for it but
everything in the household must be in conformity, from the linen,
plate, and crystal through a thousand and one items of expenditure
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: who knew, it was said, of the proposed regicide, and allowed it to be
committed."
In the chapel, where the marriage of Henri IV. and Marguerite de
Valois took place, the sole remaining fragment of the chateau of the
counts of Blois, a regiment now makes it shoes. This wonderful
structure, in which so many styles may still be seen, so many great
deeds have been performed, is in a state of dilapidation which
disgraces France. What grief for those who love the great historic
monuments of our country to know that soon those eloquent stones will
be lost to sight and knowledge, like others at the corner of the rue
de la Vieille-Pelleterie; possibly, they will exist nowhere but in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: which his poverty was forgotten or mattered not at all. Visions
of a Christmas-Eve in a home that he had earned, of a tree, of a
girl-woman, of a still and holy night, of a child.
"Nur das traute, hoch heilige Paar Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar
Schlaf' in himmlischer Ruh', Schlaf' in himmlischer Ruh'," they
sang.
There was real festivity at the old lodge of Maria Theresa that
night.
Jimmy had taken his full place in the household. The best room,
which had been Anna's, had been given up to him. Here, carefully
tended, with a fire all day in the stove, Jimmy reigned from the
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