| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: twenty-five years of age was still considered only fourteen, was
expected to groom the horses, clean the cabriolet, or the tilbury, and
the harnesses, accompany his master, take care of the apartments, and
be in the princess's antechamber to announce a visitor, if, by chance,
she happened to receive one.
When one thinks of what the beautiful Duchesse de Maufrigneuse had
been under the Restoration,--one of the queens of Paris, a dazzling
queen, whose luxurious existence equalled that of the richest women of
fashion in London,--there was something touching in the sight of her
in that humble little abode in the rue de Miromesnil, a few steps away
from her splendid mansion, which no amount of fortune had enabled her
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: name, and the verse from the library window. The Duchess had
brought with her some lovely roses, which she strewed upon the
grave, and after they had stood by it for some time they strolled
into the ruined chancel of the old abbey. There the Duchess sat
down on a fallen pillar, while her husband lay at her feet smoking
a cigarette and looking up at her beautiful eyes. Suddenly he
threw his cigarette away, took hold of her hand, and said to her,
'Virginia, a wife should have no secrets from her husband.'
'Dear Cecil! I have no secrets from you.'
'Yes, you have,' he answered, smiling, 'you have never told me what
happened to you when you were locked up with the ghost.'
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: thought; there are portraits which require the infusion of a soul, and
mean nothing unless the subtlest expression of the speaking
countenance is given; furthermore, there are things which we know not
how to say or do without the aid of secret harmonies which a day, an
hour, a fortunate conjunction of celestial signs, or an inward moral
tendency may produce.
Such mysterious revelations are imperatively needed in order to tell
this simple history, in which we seek to interest those souls that are
naturally grave and reflective and find their sustenance in tender
emotions. If the writer, like the surgeon beside his dying friend, is
filled with a species of reverence for the subject he is handling,
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