| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: on Madame du Bousquier. "She was too old," they said; "Monsieur du
Bousquier had married her too late. Besides, it was very lucky for the
poor woman; it was dangerous at her age to bear children!" When Madame
du Bousquier confided, weeping, her periodic despair to Mesdames du
Coudrai and du Ronceret, those ladies would reply,--
"But you are crazy, my dear; you don't know what you are wishing for;
a child would be your death."
Many men, whose hopes were fastened on du Bousquier's triumph, sang
his praises to their wives, who in turn repeated them to the poor wife
in some such speech as this:--
"You are very lucky, dear, to have married such an able man; you'll
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: [6] Case of Madame Weiss and the engineer Roques. If I may be
permitted the reference, there is an account of this case and
that of Barre and Lebiez in my book "French Criminals of the
Nineteenth Century."
There are some women such as Marie Boyer and Gabrielle Fenayrou,
who may be described as passively criminal, chameleon-like,
taking colour from their surroundings. By the force of a man's
influence they commit a dreadful crime, in the one instance it is
matricide, in the other the murder of a former lover, but neither
of the women is profoundly vicious or criminal in her instincts.
In prison they become exemplary, their crime a thing of the past.
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: joining him, by the reasons we have mentioned, with some others
peculiar to their chief, the Marquis of Huntly; on the other
hand, Argyle, whose forces had been augmented by those of several
Lowland noblemen, advanced towards Montrose at the head of an
army much larger than he had yet had to cope with. These troops
moved, indeed, with slowness, corresponding to the cautious
character of their commander; but even that caution rendered
Argyle's approach formidable, since his very advance implied,
that he was at the head of an army irresistibly superior
There remained one mode of retreat open to Montrose, and he
adopted it. He threw himself into the Highlands, where he could
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