| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: Parisian malice and its charming calumnies, whispered behind a fan or
in a safe aside. It was necessary to quote the remarks given at the
beginning of this history to bring out the true Firmiani in
contradistinction to the Firmiani of society. If some women forgave
her happiness, others did not forgive her propriety. Now nothing is so
dangerous in Paris as unfounded suspicions,--for the reason that it is
impossible to destroy them.
This sketch of a woman who was admirably natural gives only a faint
idea of her. It would need the pencil of an Ingres to render the pride
of that brow, with its wealth of hair, the dignity of that glance, and
the thoughts betrayed by the changing colors of her cheeks. In her
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: where he lived alone save for his servants, for in that kraal he would
suffer no woman to set foot, Macumazahn. He taught me much wisdom and
many secret things, and would have made a great doctor of me had I so
willed. But I willed it not who find spirits ill company, and there are
many of them about the Black Kloof, Macumazahn. So in the end he said:
'Go where your heart calls, and be a warrior, Saduko. But know this:
You have opened a door that can never be shut again, and across the
threshold of that door spirits will pass in and out for all your life,
whether you seek them or seek them not.'
"'It was you who opened the door, Zikali,' I answered angrily.
"'Mayhap,' said Zikali, laughing after his fashion, 'for I open when I
Child of Storm |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: whom he had ceased to mistrust, until he had tried every possible
combination of pulp and size. David lived in the paper-mill for the
first six months of 1823--if it can be called living, to leave food
untasted, and go in neglect of person and dress. He wrestled so
desperately with the difficulties, that anybody but the Cointets would
have seen the sublimity of the struggle, for the brave fellow was not
thinking of his own interests. The moment had come when he cared for
nothing but the victory. With marvelous sagacity he watched the
unaccountable freaks of the semi-artificial substances called into
existence by man for ends of his own; substances in which nature had
been tamed, as it were, and her tacit resistance overcome; and from
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