| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: public the justification I did not make to you; and I have had the
satisfaction of finding that men in masses are more capable than
individuals of understanding generous impulses and of distinguishing
the honest language of truth. Here are the facts which I related, but
more briefly and with less detail, to my electors.
A few months before my departure from Rome, I was in a cafe frequented
by the pupils of the Academy, when an Italian musician, named
Benedetto, came in, as he usually did every evening. Nominally he was
a musician and a tolerable one; but we had been warned that he was
also a spy of the Roman police. However that might be, he was very
amusing; and as we cared nothing for the police, we not only endured
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: return to them only to sleep. No one ever visits them, unless it is
the rector. Consequently, it was the voice of the priesthood which
roused Brittany against the Republic, and sent thousands of men, five
years before this history begins, to the support of the first
Chouannerie. The brothers Cottereau, whose name was given to that
first uprising, were bold smugglers, plying their perilous trade
between Laval and Fougeres. The insurrections of Brittany had nothing
fine or noble about them; and it may be truly said that if La Vendee
turned its brigandage into a great war, Brittany turned war into a
brigandage. The proscription of princes, the destruction of religion,
far from inspiring great sacrifices, were to the Chouans pretexts for
The Chouans |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: The apprentice sleeping in the shop, the cook bivouacking in the
kitchen, Perez and his wife sleeping, no doubt, the wakeful sleep of
the aged, the echoing sonority of the old mansion, the close
surveillance of the girl in the day-time,--all these things were
obstacles, and made success a thing well-nigh impossible. But
Montefiore had in his favor against all impossibilities the blood of
the Maranas which gushed in the heart of that inquisitive girl,
Italian by birth, Spanish in principles, virgin indeed, but impatient
to love. Passion, the girl, and Montefiore were ready and able to defy
the whole universe.
Montefiore, impelled as much by the instinct of a man of gallantry as
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