| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: good when he arrived at the galleys. He there condemned society,
and felt that he was becoming wicked; he there condemned Providence,
and was conscious that he was becoming impious.
It is difficult not to indulge in meditation at this point.
Does human nature thus change utterly and from top to bottom?
Can the man created good by God be rendered wicked by man?
Can the soul be completely made over by fate, and become evil,
fate being evil? Can the heart become misshapen and contract
incurable deformities and infirmities under the oppression of a
disproportionate unhappiness, as the vertebral column beneath
too low a vault? Is there not in every human soul, was there
Les Miserables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: rivalry.
It is my intention to show cause against this generally
received opinion, and before I come to Turgénieff's visits
to Yásnaya Polyána, I want to make as clear as I can
the real reason of the perpetual discords between these two
good-hearted people, who had a cordial affection for each other--
discords which led in the end to an out-and-out quarrel and the
exchange of mutual defiance.
As far as I know, my father never had any serious difference
with any other human being during the whole course of his
existence. And Turgénieff, in a letter to my father in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Frances Waldeaux by Rebecca Davis: am glad that Jean is settled so satisfactorily," she
said. "As for Lucy----"
No one answered. Lucy threaded her needle.
"I start next week to Chicago, did you know, Frances?
The Bixbys--two orphan heiresses--wish me to take them to
Australia, coming back by India. And I suppose," she
said, rising impatiently, "if I were to stay away forty
years I should find Lucy when I came back, with white
hair maybe, but sitting calmly sewing, not caring whether
there was a man in the world or not!"
Lucy laughed, but did not even blush.
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