| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: generation, those who made our armies so glorious and so terrible are
as simple as children, and as slow-witted as a clerk at his worst,
and the captain of a thundering squadron is scarcely fit to keep a
merchant's day-book. Old soldiers of this stamp, therefore being
innocent of any attempt to use their reasoning faculties, act upon
their strongest impulses. Castanier's crime was one of those matters
that raise so many questions, that, in order to debate about it, a
moralist might call for its "discussion by clauses," to make use of a
parliamentary expression.
Passion had counseled the crime; the cruelly irresistible power of
feminine witchery had driven him to commit it; no man can say of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: that object? What time did you ever set yourself for that? What
age? Run over the times of your life--by yourself, if you are
ashamed before me. Did you examine your principles when a boy?
Did you not do everything just as you do now? Or when you were a
stripling, attending the school of oratory and practising the art
yourself, what did you ever imagine you lacked? And when you were
a young man, entered upon public life, and were pleading causes
and making a name, who any longer seemed equal to you? And at
what moment would you have endured another examining your
principles and proving that they were unsound? What then am I to
say to you? "Help me in this matter!" you cry. Ah, for that I
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Brother of Daphne by Dornford Yates: She slipped a hand behind her. "I'm touching it now," she added.
"I wondered why you didn't sit in a chair," I said, with a slow
smile. A deep flush stole over the girl's features. For a
moment she looked at me with no laughter in her eyes. Then she
slipped off the table and moved across the room to an open
bureau. She seemed to look for something. Then she strolled
back to the table and took her seat on its edge once more.
"Is that a car coming? she said suddenly, her dark eyes on the
floor.
I listened. "I don't think so," I said, and stepped out on to
the balcony.
The Brother of Daphne |
