| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: Rochefeuille, Messieurs de Houppeville and Bourais, called on her and
tendered their sympathy.
At first the separation proved very painful to her. But her daughter
wrote her three times a week and the other days she, herself, wrote to
Virginia. Then she walked in the garden, read a little, and in this
way managed to fill out the emptiness of the hours.
Each morning, out of habit, Felicite entered Virginia's room and gazed
at the walls. She missed combing her hair, lacing her shoes, tucking
her in her bed, and the bright face and little hand when they used to
go out for a walk. In order to occupy herself she tried to make lace.
But her clumsy fingers broke the threads; she had no heart for
A Simple Soul |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: mental /macedoine/[*], half jesting, half funereal. With my left foot
I kept time to the music, and the other felt as if it were in a tomb.
My leg was, in fact, frozen by one of those draughts which congeal one
half of the body while the other suffers from the intense heat of the
salons--a state of things not unusual at balls.
[*] /Macedoine/, in the sense in which it is here used, is a game, or
rather a series of games, of cards, each player, when it is his
turn to deal, selecting the game to be played.
"Monsieur de Lanty has not owned this house very long, has he?"
"Oh, yes! It is nearly ten years since the Marechal de Carigliano sold
it to him."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: The warm effects which she in him finds missing,
She seeks to kindle with continual kissing.
But all in vain, good queen, it will not be:
She hath assay'd as much as may be prov'd; 608
Her pleading hath deserv'd a greater fee;
She's Love, she loves, and yet she is not lov'd.
'Fie, fie!' he says, 'you crush me; let me go;
You have no reason to withhold me so.' 612
'Thou hadst been gone,' quoth she, 'sweet boy, ere this,
But that thou told'st me thou wouldst hunt the boar.
O! be advis'd; thou know'st not what it is
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