| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: evening meal, the gayest among the peasantry; after which, they sleep.
All actions express the tranquil cheerful thoughts of those whose
day's work is over. Songs are heard very different in character from
those of the morning; in this the peasants imitate the birds, whose
warbling at night is totally unlike their notes at dawn. All nature
sings a hymn to rest, as it sang a hymn of joy to the coming sun. The
slightest movements of living beings seem tinted then with the soft,
harmonious colors of the sunset cast upon the landscape and lending
even to the dusty roadways a placid air. If any dared deny the
influence of this hour, the loveliest of the day, the flowers would
protest and intoxicate his senses with their penetrating perfumes,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: entered into negotiations with their bitterest enemy, the king of Persia,
whom they, together with us, had expelled;--him, without us, they again
brought back, barbarian against Hellenes, and all the hosts, both of
Hellenes and barbarians, were united against Athens. And then shone forth
the power and valour of our city. Her enemies had supposed that she was
exhausted by the war, and our ships were blockaded at Mitylene. But the
citizens themselves embarked, and came to the rescue with sixty other
ships, and their valour was confessed of all men, for they conquered their
enemies and delivered their friends. And yet by some evil fortune they
were left to perish at sea, and therefore are not interred here. Ever to
be remembered and honoured are they, for by their valour not only that sea-
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: that life away at once, and make matrimony, like death, be a
leap in the dark.
I would fain have the conduct of my sex a little regulated in
this particular, which is the thing in which, of all the parts of
life, I think at this time we suffer most in; 'tis nothing but lack
of courage, the fear of not being married at all, and of that
frightful state of life called an old maid, of which I have a
story to tell by itself. This, I say, is the woman's snare; but
would the ladies once but get above that fear and manage
rightly, they would more certainly avoid it by standing their
ground, in a case so absolutely necessary to their felicity, that
Moll Flanders |
