| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: receive the slightest trifle from the parasite; and here her ignorance
served her admirably, she did not even know the name of Watteau. And,
on the other hand, if anything can measure the extent of the
collector's passion, which, in truth, is one of the most deeply seated
of all passions, rivaling the very vanity of the author--if anything
can give an idea of the lengths to which a collector will go, it is
the audacity which Pons displayed on this occasion, as he held his own
against his lady cousin for the first time in twenty years. He was
amazed at his own boldness. He made Cecile see the beauties of the
delicate carving on the sticks of this wonder, and as he talked to her
his face grew serene and gentle again. But without some sketch of the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: does prevent the refutation from being shouted. Mr Harris, the
deep-voiced, refuses to be silenced. He dismisses with proper
contempt the stupidity which places an outrageous construction on
Shakespear's apologies in the sonnets for neglecting that "perfect
ceremony" of love which consists in returning calls and making
protestations and giving presents and paying the trumpery attentions
which men of genius always refuse to bother about, and to which touchy
people who have no genius attach so much importance. No leader who
had not been tampered with by the psychopathic monomaniacs could ever
put any construction but the obvious and innocent one on these
passages. But the general vocabulary of the sonnets to Pembroke (or
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: "You don't know him; he's as suspicious as a blackbird," replied
Rigou. "He is not a man at all, that priest; he doesn't care for
women; I can't find out that he has any passion; there's no point at
which one can attack him. The general lays himself open by his temper.
A man with a vice is the servant of his enemies if they know how to
pull its string. There are no strong men but those who lead their
vices instead of being led by them. The peasants are all right; their
hatred against the abbe keeps up; but we can do nothing as yet. He's
like Michaud, in his way; such men are too good for this world,--God
ought to call them to himself."
"It would be a good plan to find some pretty servant-girl to scrub his
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