| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: never been heard to sing more than two or three times since she came
to Paris. She receives much company, but goes nowhere."
The Observer speaks, you will notice, as an Oracle. His words,
anecdotes, and quotations must be accepted as truths, under pain of
being thought without social education or intelligence, and of causing
him to slander you with much zest in twenty salons where he is
considered indispensable. The Observer is forty years of age, never
dines at home, declares himself no longer dangerous to women, wears a
maroon coat, and has a place reserved for him in several boxes at the
"Bouffons." He is sometimes confounded with the Parasite; but he has
filled too many real functions to be thought a sponger; moreover he
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: stroke of midnight; but we all got used to his whims; he took the key
of the door, and we never sat up for him. He lived in a house
belonging to us in the Rue des Casernes. Well, then, one of our
stable-boys told us one evening that, going down to wash the horses in
the river, he fancied he had seen the Spanish Grandee swimming some
little way off, just like a fish. When he came in, I told him to be
careful of the weeds, and he seemed put out at having been seen in the
water.
" 'At last, monsieur, one day, or rather one morning, we did not find
him in his room; he had not come back. By hunting through his things,
I found a written paper in the drawer of his table, with fifty pieces
La Grande Breteche |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Enchanted Island of Yew by L. Frank Baum: milk-white in color, with flowing mane and tail. Upon its back was a
saddle sparkling with brilliant gems sewn upon fine dressed leather.
The girls uttered cries of astonishment and delight, and the fairy said:
"You see, these transformations are not at all difficult. I must now
have a sword."
She plucked a twig from a near-by tree and cast it upon the ground at
her feet. Again she waved her wand--and the twig turned to a gleaming
sword, richly engraved, that seemed to the silent watchers to tremble
slightly in its sheath, as if its heart of steel throbbed with hopes
of battles to come.
"And now I must have shield and armor, said the fairy, gaily. "This
The Enchanted Island of Yew |
