| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: leave during the night. The next day we went to Guerande. Pauline was
still sad, and I myself felt a return of that fever of the brain which
will destroy me. I was so cruelly tortured by the visions that came to
me of those three lives, that Pauline said at last,--
"Louis, write it all down; that will change the nature of the fever
within you."
So I have written you this narrative, dear uncle; but the shock of
such an event has made me lose the calmness I was beginning to gain
from sea-bathing and our stay in this place.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: to allay it in this limpid stream. Thrice with profane hands he
essayed to raise the water to his lips, and thrice it slipped all
through his fingers. Then he stopped prone on his breast, but, ere
his mouth had kissed the liquid crystal, Apollo came, and in the
channel held his shield betwixt the Modern and the fountain, so
that he drew up nothing but mud. For, although no fountain on
earth can compare with the clearness of Helicon, yet there lies at
bottom a thick sediment of slime and mud; for so Apollo begged of
Jupiter, as a punishment to those who durst attempt to taste it
with unhallowed lips, and for a lesson to all not to draw too deep
or far from the spring.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: rippled away into her pale hair. She got up. She said in a very lofty,
imposing way, "Do you mind following me into the drawing-room, Constantia?
I've got something of great importance to discuss with you."
For it was always to the drawing-room they retired when they wanted to talk
over Kate.
Josephine closed the door meaningly. "Sit down, Constantia," she said,
still very grand. She might have been receiving Constantia for the first
time. And Con looked round vaguely for a chair, as though she felt indeed
quite a stranger.
"Now the question is," said Josephine, bending forward, "whether we shall
keep her or not."
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