| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: of fatigue or hardship, but of grief."
"And why did you never send your man here any money?" asked the girl.
Marianna's only answer was a look, but it went to the woman's heart.
"She is proud with a vengeance!" she exclaimed. "And much good it has
done her!" she added in Giardini's ear.
All that year musicians took especial care of their instruments, and
repairs did not bring in enough to enable the poor couple to pay their
way; the wife, too, did not earn much by her needle, and they were
compelled to turn their talents to account in the lowest form of
employment. They would go out together in the dark to the Champs
Elysees and sing duets, which Gambara, poor fellow, accompanied on a
Gambara |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: Holding up the hair, he said, "I did not grow this for that bear
Ivan to tear out!"
Gavryl's wife went round among the neighbors, telling them that
they must not repeat what she told them, but that she and her
husband were going to get the best of Ivan, and that he was to be
sent to Siberia.
And so the quarrelling went on.
The poor old grandfather, sick with asthma and lying on the brick
oven all the time, tried from the first to dissuade them from
quarrelling, and begged of them to live in peace; but they would
not listen to his good advice. He said to them: "You children
The Kreutzer Sonata |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: Not pleasure, then, ranks first in the scale of good, but measure, and
eternal harmony.
Second comes the symmetrical and beautiful and perfect.
Third, mind and wisdom.
Fourth, sciences and arts and true opinions.
Fifth, painless pleasures.
Of a sixth class, I have no more to say. Thus, pleasure and mind may both
renounce the claim to the first place. But mind is ten thousand times
nearer to the chief good than pleasure. Pleasure ranks fifth and not
first, even though all the animals in the world assert the contrary.
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