| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: sublime picture, lacking no melancholy autumn pomp of yellow leaves
and half-despoiled branches, nor the softened sunlight and pale clouds
of the skies of Touraine.
At last the doctor forbade Mme. Willemsens to leave her room. Every
day it was brightened by the flowers that she loved, and her children
were always with her. One day, early in November, she sat at the piano
for the last time. A picture--a Swiss landscape--hung above the
instrument; and at the window she could see her children standing with
their heads close together. Again and again she looked from the
children to the landscape, and then again at the children. Her face
flushed, her fingers flew with passionate feeling over the ivory keys.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: had ceased to insist.
We heard the sound of gentlemanly boots in the passage, and raised our
heads, looking at each other. There was a tap at Marcas' door--he
never took the key out of the lock--and we heard the hero answer:
"Come in." Then--"What, you here, monsieur?"
"I, myself," replied the retired minister.
It was the Diocletian of this unknown martyr.
For some time he and our neighbor conversed in an undertone. Suddenly
Marcas, whose voice had been heard but rarely, as is natural in a
dialogue in which the applicant begins by setting forth the situation,
broke out loudly in reply to some offer we had not overheard.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: to be perfect. On the other hand, if they were created by me and received
life at my hands, they would be on an equality with the gods. In order
then that they may be mortal, and that this universe may be truly
universal, do ye, according to your natures, betake yourselves to the
formation of animals, imitating the power which was shown by me in creating
you. The part of them worthy of the name immortal, which is called divine
and is the guiding principle of those who are willing to follow justice and
you--of that divine part I will myself sow the seed, and having made a
beginning, I will hand the work over to you. And do ye then interweave the
mortal with the immortal, and make and beget living creatures, and give
them food, and make them to grow, and receive them again in death.'
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