| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Peter Pan by James M. Barrie: you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your
own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to
watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see
her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of
your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing
up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to
her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly
stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the
naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have
been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind and
on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier
Peter Pan |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: the same thing encountered twice in love, so deeply had she studied
the sweet solutions of the science, the manners of accommodating the
olives of Poissy, the expansions of the nerves, and hidden doctrines
of the breviary, the which much delighted the king. She was as gay as
a lark, always laughing and singing, and never made anyone miserable,
which is the characteristic of women of this open and free nature, who
have always an occupation--an equivocal one if you like. The king
often went with the hail-fellows his friends to the lady's house, and
in order not to be seen always went at night-time, and without his
suite. But being always distrustful, and fearing some snare, he gave
to Nicole all the most savage dogs he had in his kennels, beggars that
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: excessive happiness in the presence of one we love, that accounts in
part for perdurable attachments and long-lived passion. If a woman
possesses the genius of her sex, love never comes to be a matter of
use and wont. She brings all her heart and brain to love, clothes her
tenderness in forms so varied, there is such art in her most natural
moments, or so much nature in her art, that in absence her memory is
almost as potent as her presence. All other women are as shadows
compared with her. Not until we have lost or known the dread of losing
a love so vast and glorious, do we prize it at its just worth. And if
a man who has once possessed this love shuts himself out from it by
his own act and deed, and sinks to some loveless marriage; if by some
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