| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: wife, but Madame Claes's understanding of the passion of love was so
simple and ingenuous, she loved her husband so religiously, so
sacredly, and the thought of preserving her happiness made her so
adroit, that she managed always to seem to understand him, and it was
seldom indeed that her ignorance was evident. Moreover, when two
persons love one another so well that each day seems for them the
beginning of their passion, phenomena arise out of this teeming
happiness which change all the conditions of life. It resembles
childhood, careless of all that is not laughter, joy, and merriment.
Then, when life is in full activity, when its hearths glow, man lets
the fire burn without thought or discussion, without considering
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: the unity of power. Thus, his vast spirit hovered like an eagle over
his empire, joining in a singular manner the prudence of a king to the
natural idiosyncracies of a man of lofty aims. At no period in our
history has the great figure of Monarchy been finer or more poetic.
Amazing assemblages of contrasts! a great power in a feeble body; a
spirit unbelieving as to all things here below, devoutly believing in
the practices of religion; a man struggling with two powers greater
than his own--the present and the future; the future in which he
feared eternal punishment, a fear which led him to make so many
sacrifices to the Church; the present, namely his life itself, for the
saving of which he blindly obeyed Coyctier. This king, who crushed
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: brother, "Teucer, my good fellow, our trusty comrade the son of
Mastor has fallen, he came to live with us from Cythera and whom
we honoured as much as our own parents. Hector has just killed
him; fetch your deadly arrows at once and the bow which Phoebus
Apollo gave you."
Teucer heard him and hastened towards him with his bow and quiver
in his hands. Forthwith he showered his arrows on the Trojans,
and hit Cleitus the son of Pisenor, comrade of Polydamas the
noble son of Panthous, with the reins in his hands as he was
attending to his horses; he was in the middle of the very
thickest part of the fight, doing good service to Hector and the
The Iliad |
