| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: University of Paris and the extraordinary scheme of instruction that
then obtained. Theology was taught under two faculties--that of
Theology properly so called, and that of Canon Law. The faculty of
Theology, again, had three sections--Scholastic, Canonical, and
Mystic. It would be wearisome to give an account of the attributes of
each section of the science, since one only, namely, Mystic, is the
subject of this /Etude/.
Mystical Theology included the whole of Divine Revelation and the
elucidation of the Mysteries. And this branch of ancient theology has
been secretly preserved with reverence even to our own day; Jacob
Boehm, Swendenborg, Martinez Pasqualis, Saint-Martin, Molinos, Madame
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: pride; he set off on foreign service, not as general, but as
ambassador. Yet on such embassy he achieved acts worthy of the
greatest general. Autophradates[30] was besieging Ariobarzanes,[31]
who was an ally of Sparta, in Assos; but before the face of Agesilaus
he fled in terror and was gone. Cotys,[32] besieging Sestos, which
still adhered to Ariobarzanes, broke up the siege and departed
crestfallen. Well might the ambassador have set up a trophy in
commemoration of the two bloodless victories. Once more, Mausolus[33]
was besieging both the above-named places with a squadron of one
hundred sail. He too, like, and yet unlike, the former two, yielded
not to terror but to persuasion, and withdrew his fleet. These, then,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: country, with its rainy, sea-beat archipelago; its fields of
dark mountains; its unsightly places, black with coal; its
treeless, sour, unfriendly looking corn-lands; its quaint,
gray, castled city, where the bells clash of a Sunday, and
the wind squalls, and the salt showers fly and beat. I do
not even know if I desire to live there; but let me hear, in
some far land, a kindred voice sing out, "Oh, why left I my
hame?" and it seems at once as if no beauty under the kind
heavens, and no society of the wise and good, can repay me
for my absence from my country. And though I think I would
rather die elsewhere, yet in my heart of hearts I long to be
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