| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: with the service."
Before the clergyman could obey, the same prohibition which they
had before heard, was repeated from the same spot. The female
attendants screamed, and fled from the chapel; the gentlemen laid
their hands on their swords. Ere the first moment of surprise
had passed by, the Dwarf stepped from behind the monument, and
placed himself full in front of Mr. Vere. The effect of so
strange and hideous an apparition in such a place and in such
circumstances, appalled all present, but seemed to annihilate the
Laird of Ellieslaw, who, dropping his daughter's arm, staggered
against the nearest pillar, and, clasping it with his hands as if
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: which a man can give--potent over a blinded heart, but simply
ridiculous in the eyes of a woman who is beginning to criticise the
man who has attracted her.
"Do you think you can play the Emperor?" said Madame de Vaudremont,
turning three-quarters of her face to fix an ironical sidelong gaze on
the lawyer.
Martial was too much a man of the world, and had too much wit and
acumen, to risk breaking with a woman who was in favor at Court, and
whom the Emperor wished to see married. He counted, too, on the
jealousy he intended to provoke in her as the surest means of
discovering the secret of her coolness, and withdrew all the more
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: If, then, you wish to be well-pleasing in his eyes, you had best
inquire by what knowledge Themistocles[83] was able to set Hellas
free. You should ask yourself, what keen wit belonged to Pericles[83]
that he was held to be the best adviser of his fatherland. You should
scan[84] the field of history to learn by what sage wisdom Solon[85]
established for our city her consummate laws. I would have you find
the clue to that peculiar training by which the men of Lacedaemon have
come to be regarded as the best of leaders.[86] Is it not at your
house that their noblest citizens are lodged as representatives of a
foreign state?[87]
[83] See "Mem." II. vi. 13; III. vi. 2; IV. ii. 2.
The Symposium |
