| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: have a general conception of everything, have no idea how distressing
it is for a woman to be unable to comprehend the thought of the man
she loves. More forbearing than we, these divine creatures do not let
us know when the language of their souls is not understood by us; they
shrink from letting us feel the superiority of their feelings, and
hide their pain as gladly as they silence their wishes: but, having
higher ambitions in love than men, they desire to wed not only the
heart of a husband, but his mind.
To Madame Claes the sense of knowing nothing of a science which
absorbed her husband filled her with a vexation as keen as the beauty
of a rival might have caused. The struggle of woman against woman
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: They know me not. I should betray myself.
Never: not father's kiss for me--the girl
So like her mother, and the boy, my son.'
There speech and thought and nature fail'd a little,
And he lay tranced; but when he rose and paced
Back toward his solitary home again,
All down the long and narrow street he went
Beating it in upon his weary brain,
As tho' it were the burthen of a song,
`Not to tell her, never to let her know.'
He was not all unhappy. His resolve
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: Theophile Gautier, one of the most remarkable poets of our day:--
"'Ideala, flower of heaven's own blue, with heart of gold, whose
fibrous roots, softer, a thousandfold, than fairy tresses, strike to
our souls and drink their purest essence; flower most sweet and
bitter! thou canst not be torn away without the heart's blood flowing,
without thy bruised stems sweating with scarlet tears. Ah! cursed
flower, why didst thou grow within my soul?'"
"My dear fellow," said Blondet, "you are raving. I'll grant it was a
pretty flower, but it wasn't a bit ideal, and instead of singing like
a blind man before an empty niche, you had much better wash your hands
and make submission to the powers. You are too much of an artist ever
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