| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: complicated as a Chinese puzzle; and she'll go through them again to-
night. The rat is one of the primary elements of the Opera; she is to
the leading danseuse what a junior clerk is to a notary. The rat is--
hope."
"Who produces the rat?" asked Gazonal.
"Porters, paupers, actors, dancers," replied Bixiou. "Only the lowest
depths of poverty could force a child to subject her feet and joints
to positive torture, to keep herself virtuous out of mere speculation
until she is eighteen years of age, and to live with some horrible old
crone like a beautiful plant in a dressing of manure. You shall see
now a procession defiling before you, one after the other, of men of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: rough, unruly set, quick, like their elders, to quarrel, and to
quarrel fiercely, even to the drawing of sword or dagger. But
there was a cold, iron sternness about the grim old man that
quelled them, as the trainer with a lash of steel might quell a
den of young wolves. The apartments in which he was lodged, with
his clerk, were next in the dormitory of the lads, and even in
the midst of the most excited brawlings the distant sound of his
harsh voice, "Silence, messieurs!" would bring an instant hush to
the loudest uproar.
It was into his grim presence that Myles was introduced by
Gascoyne. Sir James was in his office, a room bare of ornament or
Men of Iron |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: rest of the world, found it difficult, even for a priest, to live
without something to hanker for. Consequently, for the last eighteen
months he had replaced his two satisfied passions by an ardent longing
for a canonry. The title of Canon had become to him very much what a
peerage is to a plebeian minister. The prospect of an appointment,
hopes of which had just been held out to him at Madame de Listomere's,
so completely turned his head that he did not observe until he reached
his own door that he had left his umbrella behind him. Perhaps, even
then, if the rain were not falling in torrents he might not have
missed it, so absorbed was he in the pleasure of going over and over
in his mind what had been said to him on the subject of his promotion
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