| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: religion. And agnosticism should have its ritual no less than
faith. It has sown its martyrs, it should reap its saints, and
praise God daily for having hidden Himself from man. But whether
it be faith or agnosticism, it must be nothing external to me. Its
symbols must be of my own creating. Only that is spiritual which
makes its own form. If I may not find its secret within myself, I
shall never find it: if I have not got it already, it will never
come to me.
Reason does not help me. It tells me that the laws under which I
am convicted are wrong and unjust laws, and the system under which
I have suffered a wrong and unjust system. But, somehow, I have
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: even putting aside that awful extremity, she shrank from having to
live for some three months with a wretched, tormented, angry,
distracted, absurd man. And when the day came, the day and the
hour, what should she do if her father tried to detain her by main
force - as was, after all, possible? Could she actually struggle
with him hand to hand? But it was of lamentations and entreaties
that she was really afraid. Could she withstand them? What an
odious, cruel, ridiculous position would that be!
"But it won't be. He'll say nothing," she thought as she came out
quickly on the west verandah, and, seeing that Heemskirk did not
move, sat down on a chair near the doorway and kept her eyes on
'Twixt Land & Sea |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: "No," answered the cure; it is simply what is said everywhere, from
the heights up there above us down to Grenoble, so the words have been
carved here."
Genestas remained silent for a few moments. Then he moved from where
he stood and came nearer to La Fosseuse, who did not hear him, and
spoke again to the cure.
"As soon as I have my pension," he said, "I will come to finish my
days here among you."
ADDENDUM
The following personage appears in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Murat, Joachim, Prince
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