| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Vendetta by Honore de Balzac: Ginevra was very sad. Her father, they say, has just resigned. They
ought not to add to her trouble, for she was very considerate of them
during the Hundred Days. Never did she say a word to wound them. On
the contrary, she avoided politics. But I think our ULTRAS are acting
more from jealousy than from party spite."
"I have a great mind to go and get Mademoiselle Piombo's easel and
place it next to mine," said Matilde Roguin. She rose, but second
thoughts made her sit down again.
"With a character like hers," she said, "one can't tell how she would
take a civility; better wait events."
"Ecco la," said the young girl with the black eyes, languidly.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: For he who is gracious to his lover under the impression that he is rich,
and is disappointed of his gains because he turns out to be poor, is
disgraced all the same: for he has done his best to show that he would
give himself up to any one's 'uses base' for the sake of money; but this is
not honourable. And on the same principle he who gives himself to a lover
because he is a good man, and in the hope that he will be improved by his
company, shows himself to be virtuous, even though the object of his
affection turn out to be a villain, and to have no virtue; and if he is
deceived he has committed a noble error. For he has proved that for his
part he will do anything for anybody with a view to virtue and improvement,
than which there can be nothing nobler. Thus noble in every case is the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: her the importance of a coterie. A few damaged politicians whose
wounds she had bound up, and whom she flattered, pronounced her as
capable in diplomacy as the wife of the Russian ambassador to London.
The Marquise had indeed several times suggested to deputies or to
peers words and ideas that had rung through Europe. She had often
judged correctly of certain events on which her circle of friends
dared not express an opinion. The principal persons about the Court
came in the evening to play whist in her rooms.
Then she also had the qualities of her defects; she was thought to be
--and she was--indiscreet. Her friendship seemed to be staunch; she
worked for her proteges with a persistency which showed that she cared
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