| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: to prepare the ground for his conversion. They
could not, however, break him of his habit of cross-
ing himself, but he went so far as to take off the
string with a couple of brass medals the size of a
sixpence, a tiny metal cross, and a square sort of
scapulary which he wore round his neck. He hung
them on the wall by the side of his bed, and he was
still to be heard every evening reciting the Lord's
Prayer, in incomprehensible words and in a slow,
fervent tone, as he had heard his old father do at
the head of all the kneeling family, big and little,
Amy Foster |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: would not be willing to commit so horrible a deed, but rather him who
affirms the contrary, if the act appear to you unfit even to be mentioned.
Or do you think that Orestes, had he been in his senses and knew what was
best for him to do, would ever have dared to venture on such a crime?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Nor would any one else, I fancy?
ALCIBIADES: No.
SOCRATES: That ignorance is bad then, it would appear, which is of the
best and does not know what is best?
ALCIBIADES: So I think, at least.
SOCRATES: And both to the person who is ignorant and everybody else?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: iron law which holds society together. Lifted in mind above other
women, I admire you; but if you seek to obey an impulse which you
ought to repress, I pity you. The all-wise moral of that great
domestic epic "Clarissa Harlowe" is that legitimate and honorable
love led the poor victim to her ruin because it was conceived,
developed, and pursued beyond the boundaries of family restraint.
The family, however cruel and even foolish it may be, is in the
right against the Lovelaces. The family is Society. Believe me,
the glory of a young girl, of a woman, must always be that of
repressing her most ardent impulses within the narrow sphere of
conventions. If I had a daughter able to become a Madame de Stael
Modeste Mignon |
