| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: and theatre-parties is called "paying your addresses." It revolts
me: I desire that actual marriage shall be the result of a
previous and long marriage of souls. A young girl, a woman, has
throughout her life only this one moment when reflection, second
sight, and experience are necessary to her. She plays her liberty,
her happiness, and she is not allowed to throw the dice; she risks
her all, and is forced to be a mere spectator. I have the right,
the will, the power to make my own unhappiness, and I use them, as
did my mother, who, won by beauty and led by instinct, married the
most generous, the most liberal, the most loving of men. I know
that you are free, a poet, and noble-looking. Be sure that I
Modeste Mignon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber: Frau Knapf it seemed to me that I could discern a dim,
misty halo hovering above her tightly wadded hair. My
soul went out to her as I recalled the shining
cheek-bones, and the apron, and the chickens stewed in
butter. I would have given a year out of my life to have
heard that good-natured, "Nabben'." One aborigine had
been wont to emphasize his after-dinner arguments with a
toothpick brandished fiercely between thumb and finger.
The brandisher had always annoyed me. Now I thought of
him with tenderness in my heart and reproached myself for
my fastidiousness. I should have wept if I had not had
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: SOCRATES: In spite of the mistakes which are made about the power of this
deity, and the foolish fears which people have of him, such as the fear of
always being with him after death, and of the soul denuded of the body
going to him (compare Rep.), my belief is that all is quite consistent, and
that the office and name of the God really correspond.
HERMOGENES: Why, how is that?
SOCRATES: I will tell you my own opinion; but first, I should like to ask
you which chain does any animal feel to be the stronger? and which confines
him more to the same spot,--desire or necessity?
HERMOGENES: Desire, Socrates, is stronger far.
SOCRATES: And do you not think that many a one would escape from Hades, if
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