| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: ask ourselves. Reptiles crawl over it, but give no reply. This empty
and deserted house is a vast enigma of which the answer is known to
none.
"It was formerly a little domain, held in fief, and is known as La
Grande Breteche. During my stay at Vendome, where Despleins had left
me in charge of a rich patient, the sight of this strange dwelling
became one of my keenest pleasures. Was it not far better than a ruin?
Certain memories of indisputable authenticity attach themselves to a
ruin; but this house, still standing, though being slowly destroyed by
an avenging hand, contained a secret, an unrevealed thought. At the
very least, it testified to a caprice. More than once in the evening I
La Grande Breteche |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: Thinking. In the North, life is long; in the South, it is shorter; but
in the North we see torpor, in the South a constant excitability of
the Will, up to the point where from an excess of cold or of heat the
organs are almost nullified."
The use of the word "medium" was suggested to him by an observation he
had made in his childhood, though, to be sure, he had no suspicion
then of its importance, but its singularity naturally struck his
delicately alert imagination. His mother, a fragile, nervous woman,
all sensitiveness and affection, was one of those beings created to
represent womanhood in all the perfection of her attributes, but
relegated by a mistaken fate to too low a place in the social scale.
Louis Lambert |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: human cattle there may be half a score of bold spirits who rise
above the rest, above the laws; I am one of them. And you, if you
are cleverer than your fellows, make straight to your end, and
hold your head high. But you must lay your account with envy and
slander and mediocrity, and every man's hand will be against you.
Napoleon met with a Minister of War, Aubry by name, who all but
sent him to the colonies.
"Feel your pulse. Think whether you can get up morning after
morning, strengthened in yesterday's purpose. In that case I will
make you an offer that no one would decline. Listen attentively.
You see, I have an idea of my own. My idea is to live a
Father Goriot |
