| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: lasting regrets. Eugenie's first and only love was a wellspring of
sadness within her. Meeting her lover for a few brief days, she had
given him her heart between two kisses furtively exchanged; then he
had left her, and a whole world lay between them. This love, cursed by
her father, had cost the life of her mother and brought her only
sorrow, mingled with a few frail hopes. Thus her upward spring towards
happiness had wasted her strength and given her nothing in exchange
for it. In the life of the soul, as in the physical life, there is an
inspiration and a respiration; the soul needs to absorb the sentiments
of another soul and assimilate them, that it may render them back
enriched. Were it not for this glorious human phenomenon, there would
Eugenie Grandet |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: exchange half a ton of copra for necessary flour. And here, for a
while, the story leaves to tell of his voyaging.
It must tell, instead, of our house, where, toward seven at night,
the catechist came suddenly in with his pleased air of being
welcome; armed besides with a considerable bunch of keys. These he
proceeded to try on the sea-chests, drawing each in turn from its
place against the wall. Heads of strangers appeared in the doorway
and volunteered suggestions. All in vain. Either they were the
wrong keys or the wrong boxes, or the wrong man was trying them.
For a little Taniera fumed and fretted; then had recourse to the
more summary method of the hatchet; one of the chests was broken
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: ignorant--than the laying waste of goods, of bodies, and of
souls, and the worst examples of all the worst things. These
things are clearer than the light to all men; and the Church of
Rome, formerly the most holy of all Churches, has become the most
lawless den of thieves, the most shameless of all brothels, the
very kingdom of sin, death, and hell; so that not even
antichrist, if he were to come, could devise any addition to its
wickedness.
Meanwhile you, Leo, are sitting like a lamb in the midst of
wolves, like Daniel in the midst of lions, and, with Ezekiel, you
dwell among scorpions. What opposition can you alone make to
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