| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: experience had brought her, perhaps at a heavy price. She was moved,
and said, as she looked at me:
"Dear little girl, you've got a nasty crossing before you. And most
women, in their ignorance or their disenchantment, are as wise as the
Earl of Westmoreland!"
We both laughed; but I must explain the joke. The evening before, a
Russian princess had told us an anecdote of this gentleman. He had
suffered frightfully from sea-sickness in crossing the Channel, and
turned tail when he got near Italy, because he had heard some one
speak of "crossing" the Alps. "Thank you; I've had quite enough
crossings already," he said.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: to you, Xenophon, is, whenever you catch sight of one of these fair
forms, to run helter-skelter for bare life without a glance behind;
and to you, Critobulus, I would say, "Go abroad for a year: so long
time will it take to heal you of this wound."
[14] L. Dindorf, etc. regard the sentence as a gloss. Cf. "Symp." iv.
26 [{isos de kai . . . entimoteron estin}].
Such (he said), in the affairs of Aphrodite, as in meats and drinks,
should be the circumspection of all whose footing is insecure. At
least they should confine themselves to such diet as the soul would
dispense with, save for some necessity of the body; and which even so
ought to set up no disturbance.[15] But for himself, it was clear, he
The Memorabilia |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: to look at some drawings of Miss Darcy's, in crayons, whose
subjects were usually more interesting, and also more intelligible.
In the gallery there were many family portraits, but they could
have little to fix the attention of a stranger. Elizabeth walked in
quest of the only face whose features would be known to her.
At last it arrested her-- and she beheld a striking resemblance to
Mr. Darcy, with such a smile over the face as she remembered
to have sometimes seen when he looked at her. She stood
several minutes before the picture, in earnest contemplation,
and returned to it again before they quitted the gallery. Mrs.
Reynolds informed them that it had been taken in his father's
Pride and Prejudice |
