| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: river in the ruins of a pig-sty. The urchins peeped at him through the
cracks in the walls and threw stones that fell on his miserable bed,
where he lay gasping with catarrh, with long hair, inflamed eyelids,
and a tumour as big as his head on one arm.
She got him some linen, tried to clean his hovel and dreamed of
installing him in the bake-house without his being in Madame's way.
When the cancer broke, she dressed it every day; sometimes she brought
him some cake and placed him in the sun on a bundle of hay; and the
poor old creature, trembling and drooling, would thank her in his
broken voice, and put out his hands whenever she left him. Finally he
died; and she had a mass said for the repose of his soul.
A Simple Soul |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: The son of Flanders came back to Douai, like La Fontaine's pigeon to
its nest; he wept with joy as he re-entered the town on the day of the
Gayant procession,--Gayant, the superstitious luck of Douai, the glory
of Flemish traditions, introduced there at the time the Claes family
had emigrated from Ghent. The death of Balthazar's father and mother
had left the old mansion deserted, and the young man was occupied for
a time in settling its affairs. His first grief over, he wished to
marry; he needed the domestic happiness whose every religious aspect
had fastened upon his mind. He even followed the family custom of
seeking a wife in Ghent, or at Bruges, or Antwerp; but it happened
that no woman whom he met there suited him. Undoubtedly, he had
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: of the sciences which presented themselves to me, for this would have been
contrary to the order prescribed in the method, but observing that the
knowledge of such is dependent on principles borrowed from philosophy, in
which I found nothing certain, I thought it necessary first of all to
endeavor to establish its principles. .And because I observed, besides,
that an inquiry of this kind was of all others of the greatest moment, and
one in which precipitancy and anticipation in judgment were most to be
dreaded, I thought that I ought not to approach it till I had reached a
more mature age (being at that time but twenty-three), and had first of
all employed much of my time in preparation for the work, as well by
eradicating from my mind all the erroneous opinions I had up to that
Reason Discourse |
