| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: sharply against the pillow as if the profile had been cast in bronze;
he stretched out a lean arm and bony hand along the coverlet and
clutched it, as if so he would fain keep his hold on life, then he
gazed hard at the grate, cold as his own metallic eyes, and died in
full consciousness of death. To us--the portress, the old pensioner,
and myself--he looked like one of the old Romans standing behind the
Consuls in Lethiere's picture of the Death of the Sons of Brutus.
" 'He was a good-plucked one, the old Lascar!' said the pensioner in
his soldierly fashion.
"But as for me, the dying man's fantastical enumeration of his riches
still sounding in my ears, and my eyes, following the direction of
Gobseck |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: Baudraye, and left the man with the chaise full of trunks, vowing that
he would send away /illico/, as he said to himself, the woman and her
luggage, back to the place she had come from.
"Monsieur, monsieur," called out little Pamela.
The child had some sense, and felt that three women must not be
allowed to meet in a bachelor's rooms.
"Well, well!" said Lousteau, dragging Dinah along.
Pamela concluded that the lady must be some relation; however, she
added:
"The key is in the door; your mother-in-law is there."
In his agitation, while Madame de la Baudraye was pouring out a flood
The Muse of the Department |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: Best of men, I said, I am delighted to hear you say so; and I am also
grateful to you for having saved me from a long and tiresome investigation
as to whether wisdom can be taught or not. But now, as you think that
wisdom can be taught, and that wisdom only can make a man happy and
fortunate, will you not acknowledge that all of us ought to love wisdom,
and you individually will try to love her?
Certainly, Socrates, he said; I will do my best.
I was pleased at hearing this; and I turned to Dionysodorus and Euthydemus
and said: That is an example, clumsy and tedious I admit, of the sort of
exhortations which I would have you give; and I hope that one of you will
set forth what I have been saying in a more artistic style: or at least
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