| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue,
to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a
mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected
upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his
heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed
those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical
sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures."
"But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of
Marianina or her little old man in all this."
"You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom
some one has spoiled the effect of a /coup de theatre/.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: To weep their intermissive miseries.
[Enter to them another Messenger.]
MESSENGER.
Lords, view these letters full of bad mischance.
France is revolted from the English quite,
Except some petty towns of no import:
The Dauphin Charles is crowned king in Rheims;
The Bastard of Orleans with him is join'd;
Reignier, Duke of Anjou, doth take his part;
The Duke of Alencon flieth to his side.
EXETER.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: Spaniards sinned and died for, is for ever hidden yonder by the
shores of the bitter lake whose waters gave up to you that ancient
horror, the veritable and sleepless god of Sacrifice, of whom I
would not rob you--and, for my part, I do not regret the loss.
What cannot be lost, what to me seem of more worth than the dead
hero Guatemoc's gems and jars of gold, are the memories of true
friendship shown to us far away beneath the shadow of the
Slumbering Woman,* and it is in gratitude for these that I ask
permission to set your name within a book which were it not for you
would never have been written.
I am, my dear Jebb,
Montezuma's Daughter |
