| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: temperament; Caesar at five-and-twenty, Cromwell at thirty; and then,
like my grocer buried in Pere Lachaise, a good husband and a good
father. In short, he improvised public works, empires, kings, codes,
verses, a romance--and all with more range than precision. Did he not
aim at making all Europe France? And after making us weigh on the
earth in such a way as to change the laws of gravitation, he left us
poorer than on the day when he first laid hands on us; while he, who
had taken an empire by his name, lost his name on the frontier of his
empire in a sea of blood and soldiers. A man all thought and all
action, who comprehended Desaix and Fouche."
"All despotism and all justice at the right moments. The true king!"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: itself will, as at this moment, thrust itself in the way of their
scanty comfort.
"I thought Rabourdin was a man above all ordinary petty manoeuvres,"
began the minister; "and yet here, not ten minutes after La
Billardiere's death, he sends me this note by La Briere,--it is like a
stage missive. Look," said his Excellency, giving des Lupeaulx a paper
which he was twirling in his fingers.
Too noble in mind to think for a moment of the shameful meaning La
Billardiere's death might lend to his letter, Rabourdin had not
withdrawn it from La Briere's hands after the news reached him. Des
Lupeaulx read as follows:--
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: when Kolben says 'they are certainly the most friendly,
the most liberal and the most benevolent people to one
another that ever appeared on the earth' he wrote a sentence
which has continually appeared since in the description
of savages. When first meeting with primitive races,
the Europeans usually make a caricature of their
life; but when an intelligent man has stayed among them
for a longer time he generally describes them as the
'kindest' or the 'gentlest' race on the earth. These
very same words have been applied to the Ostyaks, the
Samoyedes, the Eskimos, the Dyaks, the Aleuts, the
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
