| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: "Oh! against my wife's will," added the count, hastily. "I was forced
to deceive her; she did not know that I was leaving her."
"You have left her?"
"My passage is taken; I sail for Calcutta on the 'Belle-Amelie.'"
"Two day's hence!" cried the notary. "Then, Monsieur le comte, we
shall never meet again."
"You are only seventy-three, my dear Mathias, and you have the gout,
the brevet of old age. When I return I shall find you still afoot.
Your good head and heart will be as sound as ever, and you will help
me to reconstruct what is now a shaken edifice. I intend to make a
noble fortune in seven years. I shall be only forty on my return. All
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: there were other sounds in the forest, faint, stealthy, inaudible to
an ear less keen than his. He crept out of the shelter and looked
into the wood. He could see shadowy forms, stealing among the
trees, gliding down the hill. Five of them. Wolves, doubtless! He
must guard the provisions. By this time the rest of his team were
awake. Their eyes glittered. They stirred uneasily. But they did
not move from the dying fire. It was no concern of theirs what
their leader chose to do out of hours. In the traces they would
follow him, but there was no loyalty in their hearts. Pichou stood
alone by the sledge, waiting for the wolves.
But these were no wolves. They were assassins. Like a company of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: feelings turn to hatred, in mine they condensed and hollowed a depth
from which, in after years, they gushed forth upon my life. In many
characters the habit of trembling relaxes the fibres and begets fear,
and fear ends in submission; hence, a weakness which emasculates a
man, and makes him more or less a slave. But in my case these
perpetual tortures led to the development of a certain strength, which
increased through exercise and predisposed my spirit to the habit of
moral resistance. Always in expectation of some new grief--as the
martyrs expected some fresh blow--my whole being expressed, I doubt
not, a sullen resignation which smothered the grace and gaiety of
childhood, and gave me an appearance of idiocy which seemed to justify
The Lily of the Valley |
