| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: death. It was a jest undertaken in earnest, a game of chess which
he meant to reserve till his old age. Don Juan had learned wisdom
from the mistakes made by his father Bartolommeo; he determined
that the least details of his life in old age should be
subordinated to one object--the success of the drama which was to
be played out upon his death-bed.
For the same reason the largest part of his wealth was buried in
the cellars of his palace at Ferrara, whither he seldom went. As
for the rest of his fortune, it was invested in a life annuity,
with a view to give his wife and children an interest in keeping
him alive; but this Machiavellian piece of foresight was scarcely
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: time on the top of the mountain, came down when they saw our tents,
and congratulated our arrival. It is not easy to express the
benevolence and tenderness with which they embraced us, and the
concern they showed at seeing us worn away with hunger, labour, and
weariness, our clothes tattered, and our feet bloody.
We left this place of interview the next day, and on the 21st of
June arrived at Fremone, the residence of the missionaries, where we
were welcomed by great numbers of Catholics, both Portuguese and
Abyssins, who spared no endeavours to make us forget all we had
suffered in so hazardous a journey, undertaken with no other
intention than to conduct them in the way of salvation.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: to one of the glories of modern medicine, Horace Bianchon, and to an
author of secondary rank, Etienne Lousteau, one of our most successful
journalists. The district included under the municipality of Sancerre,
distressed at finding itself practically ruled by seven or eight large
landowners, the wire-pullers of the elections, tried to shake off the
electoral yoke of a creed which had reduced it to a rotten borough.
This little conspiracy, plotted by a handful of men whose vanity was
provoked, failed through the jealousy which the elevation of one of
them, as the inevitable result, roused in the breasts of the others.
This result showed the radical defect of the scheme, and the remedy
then suggested was to rally round a champion at the next election, in
The Muse of the Department |
