| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: later, when this Louis XI, without the axe, lay stricken down by
disease, that those about him got the upper hand. The Duchesse
de Langeais, a Navarreins by birth, came of a ducal house which
had made a point of never marrying below its rank since the reign
of Louis XIV. Every daughter of the house must sooner or later
take a tabouret at Court. So, Antoinette de Navarreins, at the
age of eighteen, came out of the profound solitude in which her
girlhood had been spent to marry the Duc de Langeais's eldest
son. The two families at that time were living quite out of the
world; but after the invasion of France, the return of the
Bourbons seemed to every Royalist mind the only possible way of
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poems of William Blake by William Blake: The breath doth nourish the innocent lamb, he smells the milky garments
He crops thy flowers while thou sittest smiling in his face,
Wiping his mild and meekin mouth from all contagious taints.
Thy wine doth purify the golden honey; thy perfume.
Which thou dost scatter on every little blade of grass that springs
Revives the milked cow, & tames the fire-breathing steed.
But Thel is like a faint cloud kindled at the rising sun:
I vanish from my pearly throne, and who shall find my place.
Queen of the vales the Lily answered, ask the tender cloud,
And it shall tell thee why it glitters in the morning sky.
And why it scatters its bright beauty thro the humid air.
Poems of William Blake |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: this city in the eyes of the whole world, and add largely to the
number of our visitors. But if any one is disposed to take the view,
that by adopting a persistent peace policy,[2] this city will be shorn
of her power, that her glory will dwindle and her good name be
forgotten throughout the length and breadth of Hellas, the view so
taken by our friends here[3] is in my poor judgment somewhat
unreasonable. For they are surely the happy states, they, in popular
language, are most fortune-favoured, which endure in peace the longest
season. And of all states Athens is pre-eminently adapted by nature to
flourish and wax strong in peace. The while she abides in peace she
cannot fail to exercise an attractive force on all. From the mariner
|
