| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: how, in the interval, was he to be rid of it?
Put yourself, I beseech you, into the body of that patriot.
There he was, friendless and helpless; a man in the very
flower of life, for he is not yet forty; with long years of
happiness before him; and now condemned, in one moment, to a
cruel and revolting death by dynamite! The square, he said,
went round him like a thaumatrope; he saw the Alhambra leap
into the air like a balloon; and reeled against the railing.
It is probable he fainted.
When he came to himself, a constable had him by the arm.
'My God!' he cried.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: repentance, the whole story of a woman's life in that sublime face--
the careless childhood, the loveless marriage, a terrible passion,
flowers springing up in storm and struck down by the thunderbolt into
an abyss from which there is no return.
"Darling mother," Louis said at last, "why do you hide your pain from
me?"
"My boy, we ought to hide our troubles from strangers," she said; "we
should show them a smiling face, never speak of ourselves to them, nor
think about ourselves; and these rules, put in practice in family
life, conduce to its happiness. You will have much to bear one day! Ah
me! then think of your poor mother who died smiling before your eyes,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: that she was a maiden in heart and all, since she confessed in
marriage she had experienced nothing but the reverse of pleasure. And
she added, that surely this holy state should be full of sweetmeats
and dainties of love, because all the ladies hurried into it, and
hated and were jealous of those who out-bid them, for it cost certain
people pretty dear; that she was so curious about it that for one good
day or night of love, she would give her life, and always be obedient
to her lover without a murmur; but that he with whom she would sooner
than all others try the experiment would not listen to her; that,
nevertheless, the secret of their love might be kept eternally, so
great was her husband's confidence in him, and that finally if he
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
