| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: shop was closed, the street quiet, the accounts regulated, made a
fanatic of the Tourangian, who in becoming a royalist obeyed an inborn
instinct. The recital of the virtuous deeds of Louis XVI., the
anecdotes with which husband and wife exalted the memory of the queen,
fired the imagination of the young man. The horrible fate of those two
crowned heads, decapitated a few steps from the shop-door, roused his
feeling heart and made him hate a system of government which was
capable of shedding blood without repugnance. His commercial interests
showed him the death of trade in the Maximum, and in political
convulsions, which are always destructive of business. Moreover, like
a true perfumer, he hated the revolution which made a Titus of every
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: acquired, of Apollodorus the madman; for you are always raging against
yourself and everybody but Socrates.
APOLLODORUS: Yes, friend, and the reason why I am said to be mad, and out
of my wits, is just because I have these notions of myself and you; no
other evidence is required.
COMPANION: No more of that, Apollodorus; but let me renew my request that
you would repeat the conversation.
APOLLODORUS: Well, the tale of love was on this wise:--But perhaps I had
better begin at the beginning, and endeavour to give you the exact words of
Aristodemus:
He said that he met Socrates fresh from the bath and sandalled; and as the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: One morning as we left the breakfast table, about a month after my
arrival, the countess took me by the arm, darted through an iron gate
which led into the vineyard, and dragged me hastily among the vines.
"He will kill me!" she cried. "And I want to live--for my children's
sake. But oh! not a day's respite! Always to walk among thorns! to
come near falling every instant! every instant to have to summon all
my strength to keep my balance! No human being can long endure such
strain upon the system. If I were certain of the ground I ought to
take, if my resistance could be a settled thing, then my mind might
concentrate upon it--but no, every day the attacks change character
and leave me without defence; my sorrows are not one, they are
The Lily of the Valley |
