| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: hate. What would become of him without me? I hindered his marriage; he
has no prospects. His talent would perish in privations."
"Oh, my Dinah!" Madame Piedefer had exclaimed, "what a hell you live
in! What is the feeling that gives you strength enough to persist?"
"I will be a mother to him!" she had replied.
There are certain horrible situations in which we come to no decision
till the moment when our friends discern our dishonor. We accept
compromises with ourself so long as we escape a censor who comes to
play prosecutor. Monsieur de Clagny, as clumsy as a tortured man, had
been torturing Dinah.
"To preserve my love I will be all that Madame de Pompadour was to
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: Thy princely office how canst thou fulfill,
When, pattern'd by thy fault, foul Sin may say
He learn'd to sin, and thou didst teach the way?
'Think but how vile a spectacle it were
To view thy present trespass in another.
Men's faults do seldom to themselves appear;
Their own transgressions partially they smother:
This guilt would seem death-worthy in thy brother.
O how are they wrapp'd in with infamies
That from their own misdeeds askaunce their eyes!
'To thee, to thee, my heav'd-up hands appeal,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: through which rushes and flags have pushed up. I used to admire the
ripple marks on the sandy bottom, at the north end of this pond,
made firm and hard to the feet of the wader by the pressure of the
water, and the rushes which grew in Indian file, in waving lines,
corresponding to these marks, rank behind rank, as if the waves had
planted them. There also I have found, in considerable quantities,
curious balls, composed apparently of fine grass or roots, of
pipewort perhaps, from half an inch to four inches in diameter, and
perfectly spherical. These wash back and forth in shallow water on
a sandy bottom, and are sometimes cast on the shore. They are
either solid grass, or have a little sand in the middle. At first
Walden |
