| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: modifications of successive generations of architects, some sombre
weather-beaten pile, the delight of a poet, the story would drive the
commentator and the industrious winnower of words, facts, and dates to
despair. The narrator believes in it, as all superstitious minds in
Flanders likewise believe; and is not a whit wiser nor more credulous
than his audience. But as it would be impossible to make a harmony of
all the different renderings, here are the outlines of the story;
stripped, it may be, of its picturesque quaintness, but with all its
bold disregard of historical truth, and its moral teachings approved
by religion--a myth, the blossom of imaginative fancy; an allegory
that the wise may interpret to suit themselves. To each his own
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: A scarcely perceptible smile on de Marsay's pale lips made Delphine de
Nucingen color.
"How we do forget!" said the Baron de Nucingen.
The great banker's simplicity was so extremely droll, that his wife,
who was de Marsay's "second," could not help laughing like every one
else.
"You are all ready to condemn the woman," said Lady Dudley. "Well, I
quite understand that she did not regard her marriage as an act of
inconstancy. Men will never distinguish between constancy and
fidelity.--I know the woman whose story Monsieur de Marsay has told
us, and she is one of the last of your truly great ladies."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: Now there was a certain Apollodorus,[52] who was an enthusiastic lover
of the master, but for the rest a simple-minded man. He exclaimed very
innocently, "But the hardest thing of all to bear, Socrates, is to see
you put to death unjustly."[53]
[52] Cf. "Mem." III. xi. 17; Plut. "Cato min." 46 (Clough, iv. 417).
See Cobet, "Pros. Xen." s.n.; cf. Plat. "Symp." 173; "Phaed." 54
A, 117 D; Aelian, "V. H." i. 16; Heges. "Delph." ap. Athen. xi.
507.
[53] Diog. Laert. ii. 5. 35, ascribes the remark to Xanthippe, and so
Val. Max. 7. 2, Ext. 1.
Whereupon Socrates, it is said, gently stroked the young man's head:
The Apology |
