| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: genuine tenderness, an artless admiration, equally strong in each.
They even praised his beauty, which was small, and were as afraid
of him as if they felt him of finer clay. They spoke of him as a
little angel and a prodigy - they touched on his want of health
with long vague faces. Pemberton feared at first an extravagance
that might make him hate the boy, but before this happened he had
become extravagant himself. Later, when he had grown rather to
hate the others, it was a bribe to patience for him that they were
at any rate nice about Morgan, going on tiptoe if they fancied he
was showing symptoms, and even giving up somebody's "day" to
procure him a pleasure. Mixed with this too was the oddest wish to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: ridden by Death, for it bears within itself the elements of its own
destruction.' Moreover, they can distinguish beings concealed under
forms which to ignorant eyes would seem fantastic. When a man is
disposed to receive the prophetic afflation of Correspondences, it
rouses within him a perception of the Word; he comprehends that the
creations are transformations only; his intellect is sharpened, a
burning thirst takes possession of him which only Heaven can quench.
He conceives, according to the greater or lesser perfection of his
inner being, the power of the Angelic Spirits; and he advances, led by
Desire (the least imperfect state of unregenerated man) towards Hope,
the gateway to the world of Spirits, whence he reaches Prayer, which
Seraphita |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: events of the evening, when his friend exchanged his charger for a
rich and pretty young wife.
As the Comtesse de Soulanges drove across Paris from the Chausee
d'Antin to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where she lived, her soul was
prey to many alarms. Before leaving the Hotel Gondreville she went
through all the rooms, but found neither her aunt nor her husband, who
had gone away without her. Frightful suspicions then tortured her
ingenuous mind. A silent witness of her husbands' torments since the
day when Madame de Vaudremont had chained him to her car, she had
confidently hoped that repentance would ere long restore her husband
to her. It was with unspeakable repugnance that she had consented to
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