| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: Normandy, but a fragile and, so to speak, aristocratic beauty. Her
features were delicate and refined, her figure supple and easy. When
she spoke, her pale face lighted and seemed to acquire fresh life. Her
large dark eyes were full of affability and kindness, and yet their
calm, religious expression seemed to say that the springs of her
existence were no longer in her.
Married in the flower of her age to an old and jealous soldier, the
falseness of her position in the midst of a court noted for its
gallantry contributed much, no doubt, to draw a veil of melancholy
over a face where the charms and the vivacity of love must have shone
in earlier days. Obliged to repress the naive impulses and emotions of
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: So emulous was he of a calm and tranquil courage greater than his own,
that at last, perhaps unconsciously, something of that mysterious
nature passed into his own soul. His admiration became an instinctive
zeal for this man, a boundless love for and belief in him, such a love
as soldiers feel for their leader when he has the power of swaying
other men, when the halo of victories surrounds him, and the magical
fascination of genius is felt in all that he does. The poor outcast
was murmuring to herself:
"Ah! miserable wretch that I am! Have I not suffered enough to expiate
the sins of my youth? Ah! wretched woman, why did you leave the gay
life of a frivolous Frenchwoman? why did you devour the goods of God
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: in ebony and two cabinets by Boulle completed the decoration, and gave
to this gallery a certain air that was full of character. In the
course of two years the liberality of devout persons, and legacies,
though small ones, from pious penitents, filled the shelves of the
bookcase, till then half empty. Moreover, Chapeloud's uncle, an old
Oratorian, had left him his collection in folio of the Fathers of the
Church, and several other important works that were precious to a
priest.
Birotteau, more and more surprised by the successive improvements of
the gallery, once so bare, came by degrees to a condition of
involuntary envy. He wished he could possess that apartment, so
|
