| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: Pauline and Georges. It is all caprice with him now. In his affection
for you he might take it into his head to tell you to do things for
him. If you do not want to ruin us all, my darling, and to see your
mother begging her bread like a pauper woman, you must tell her
everything----'
" 'Ah!' cried the Count. He had opened the door and stood there, a
sudden, half-naked apparition, almost as thin and fleshless as a
skeleton.
"His smothered cry produced a terrible effect upon the Countess; she
sat motionless, as if a sudden stupor had seized her. Her husband was
as white and wasted as if he had risen out of his grave.
Gobseck |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: Specialism, which is one of the paths to the Infinite. Man
measures everything by Abstractions: Good and Evil, Virtue and
Crime. Its formula of equity is a pair of scales, its justice is
blind. God's justice sees: there is all the difference.
There must be intermediate Beings, then, dividing the sphere of
Instinct from the sphere of Abstractions, in whom the two elements
mingle in an infinite variety of proportions. Some have more of
one, some more of the other. And there are also some in which the
two powers neutralize each other by equality of effect.
XVI
Specialism consists in seeing the things of the material universe
Louis Lambert |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: "Eudora!" she gasped.
Eudora turned her serene face and regarded her questioningly.
"Eudora," said Amelia, "have you heard of anybody's coming to
stay at the inn lately?"
"No," replied Eudora, calmly. "Why, dear?"
"Nothing, only, Eudora, a dear and old friend of yours, of ours,
is there, so I hear."
Eudora did not inquire who the old friend might be. "Really?"
she remarked. Then she said, "Goodby, Amelia dear," and resumed
her progress with the baby-carriage.
PART II
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