| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: and yet his wife had never appeared purer or more saintly than she
seemed to be at this moment. He rose to go and open the closet door.
Madame de Merret took his hand, stopped him, looked at him sadly, and
said in a voice of strange emotion, 'Remember, if you should find no
one there, everything must be at an end between you and me.'
"The extraordinary dignity of his wife's attitude filled him with deep
esteem for her, and inspired him with one of those resolves which need
only a grander stage to become immortal.
" 'No, Josephine,' he said, 'I will not open it. In either event we
should be parted for ever. Listen; I know all the purity of your soul,
I know you lead a saintly life, and would not commit a deadly sin to
La Grande Breteche |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: "My great-grandfather, the Marquis d'Espard, was, like me, placed
early in life at the head of his family by the death of his father,
who, after dissipating his wife's fortune, left his son nothing but
the entailed estates of the d'Espards, burdened with a jointure. The
young Marquis was all the more straitened for money because he held a
post at Court. Being in great favor with Louis XIV., the King's
goodwill brought him a fortune. But here, monsieur, a blot stained our
escutcheon, an unconfessed and horrible stain of blood and disgrace
which I am making it my business to wipe out. I discovered the secret
among the deeds relating to the estate of Negrepelisse and the packets
of letters."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: I know what I say: but basta: Let us drink."
"What other game?" said the little friar. "I hope he won't poach
among our partridges."
"Poach! not he," said brother Michael: "if he wants your partridges,
he will strike them under your nose (here's to you), and drag your
trout-stream for you on a Thursday evening."
"Monstrous! and starve us on fast-day," said the little friar.
"But that is not the game I mean," said brother Michael.
"Surely, son Michael," said the abbot, "you do not mean to insinuate
that the noble earl will turn freebooter?"
"A man must live," said brother Michael, "earl or no. If the law
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