| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: his ill-luck, and perhaps to find consolation. During dinner he had
observed that his wife was very becomingly dressed; he reflected as he
came home from the club that his wife was certainly much better, that
convalescence had improved her beauty, discovering it, as husbands
discover everything, a little too late. Instead of calling Rosalie,
who was in the kitchen at the moment watching the cook and the
coachman playing a puzzling hand at cards, Monsieur de Merret made his
way to his wife's room by the light of his lantern, which he set down
at the lowest step of the stairs. His step, easy to recognize, rang
under the vaulted passage.
"At the instant when the gentleman turned the key to enter his wife's
La Grande Breteche |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: Matthias's ed. v. ii. p. 36.) have considered this an
anticipation of a profound discovery of Galileo's in natural
philosophy, but it is in reality taken from a passage in Cicero
"de Senectute," where, speaking of the grape, he says, " quae, et
succo terrae et calore solis augescens, primo
est peracerba gustatu, deinde maturata dulcescit."
v. 123. I do, not know a man.] Luke, c. i. 34.
v. 126. Callisto.] See Ovid, Met. 1. ii. fab. 5.
CANTO XXVI
v. 70. Caesar.] For the opprobrium east on Caesar's effeminacy,
see Suetonius, Julius Caesar, c. 49.
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde: sweet herbs, or filling his pockets with plums and cherries if it
was the fruit season.
"'Real friends should have everything in common,' the Miller used
to say, and little Hans nodded and smiled, and felt very proud of
having a friend with such noble ideas.
"Sometimes, indeed, the neighbours thought it strange that the rich
Miller never gave little Hans anything in return, though he had a
hundred sacks of flour stored away in his mill, and six milch cows,
and a large flock of woolly sheep; but Hans never troubled his head
about these things, and nothing gave him greater pleasure than to
listen to all the wonderful things the Miller used to say about the
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