| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: the importance of the first hours of their sway,--that of wasting your
power on trifles, on silly things with no result. Use the empire your
husband's first emotions give you to accustom him to obedience. And
when you make him yield, choose that it be on some unreasonable point,
so as to test the measure of your power by the measure of his
concession. What victory would there be in making him agree to a
reasonable thing? Would that be obeying you? We must always, as the
Castilian proverb says, take the bull by the horns; when a bull has
once seen the inutility of his defence and of his strength he is
beaten. When your husband does a foolish thing for you, you can govern
him."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: stirred by real feeling delicately expressed, that it affected her
very strongly now. In spite of herself, she watched M. de Nueil's
expressive face, and admired the noble countenance of a soul, unbroken
as yet by the cruel discipline of the life of the world, unfretted by
continual scheming to gratify personal ambition and vanity. Gaston was
in the flower of his youth, he impressed her as a man with something
in him, unaware as yet of the great career that lay before him. So
both these two made reflections most dangerous for their peace of
mind, and both strove to conceal their thoughts. M. de Nueil saw in
the Vicomtesse a rare type of woman, always the victim of her
perfections and tenderness; her graceful beauty is the least of her
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: to hear, waving it perpetually aside with exclamations of horror and
anger, with fiercely sombre mutters "Enough! Enough!" and with
alarming starts from a forced stillness, as though he meant to rush
out at once and take vengeance on somebody. She was saying to
herself that he caught her words in the air, never letting her
finish her thought. Honest. Honest. Yes certainly she had been
that. Her letter to Mrs. Fyne had been prompted by honesty. But
she reflected sadly that she had never known what to say to him.
That perhaps she had nothing to say.
"But you'll find out that I can be honest too," he burst out in a
menacing tone, she had learned to appreciate with an amused thrill.
Chance |
