| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: LADY CAROLINE. [To her husband.] John! [SIR JOHN goes over to
his wife. DOCTOR DAUBENY talks to LADY HUNSTANTON and MRS.
ARBUTHNOT.]
[MRS. ARBUTHNOT watches LORD ILLINGWORTH the whole time. He has
passed across the room without noticing her, and approaches MRS.
ALLONBY, who with LADY STUTFIELD is standing by the door looking on
to the terrace.]
LORD ILLINGWORTH. How is the most charming woman in the world?
MRS. ALLONBY. [Taking LADY STUTFIELD by the hand.] We are both
quite well, thank you, Lord Illingworth. But what a short time you
have been in the dining-room! It seems as if we had only just
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: as her "sposo." She employed her powers of seduction to keep me under
her roof, for she was not content with a rumored scandal which, for
want of proof, was only whispered behind the fans. Seeing her so happy
in committing an imprudence which frankly admitted her position, how
could I help believing in her love?
But no sooner was I plunged into the comforts of illegal marriage than
despair seized upon me; I saw my life bound to a course in direct
defiance of the ideas and the advice given me by Henriette.
Thenceforth I lived in the sort of rage we find in consumptive
patients who, knowing their end is near, cannot endure that their
lungs should be examined. There was no corner in my heart where I
The Lily of the Valley |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: frame of your picture, you think yourselves majestic artists like our
great forefathers. Ha, ha! you have not got there yet, my little men;
you will use up many a crayon and spoil many a canvas before you reach
that height. Undoubtedly a woman carries her head this way and her
petticoats that way; her eyes soften and droop with just that look of
resigned gentleness; the throbbing shadow of the eyelashes falls
exactly thus upon her cheek. That is it, and--that is NOT IT. What
lacks? A mere nothing; but that mere nothing is ALL. You have given
the shadow of life, but you have not given its fulness, its being, its
--I know not what--soul, perhaps, which floats vaporously about the
tabernacle of flesh; in short, that flower of life which Raphael and
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