| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: little careful; so the can was kept in a place by itself, under the
out-of-door oven, in the shade. And beside this can Jean would
find, every day, something particular,--a blossom of the red
geranium that bloomed in the farmhouse window, a piece of cake with
plums in it, a bunch of trailing arbutus,--once it was a little bit
of blue ribbon, tied in a certain square knot--so--perhaps you know
that sign too? That did Jean's heart good also.
But what kind of conversation was there in the cabane when the sick
man's delirium had passed and he knew what had happened to him? Not
much at first, for the man was too weak. After he began to get
stronger, he was thinking a great deal, fighting with himself. In
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: her happiness, she laid her head upon her husband's breast.
"My dear niece," said the old man, "in my day we made love; in yours,
you love. You women are all that is best in humanity; you are not even
guilty of your faults, for they come through us."
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Blamont-Chauvry, Princesse de
The Thirteen
Madame Firmiani
The Lily of the Valley
Bourbonne, De
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: bended knees. It is the least defect of such a method of
portraiture that it makes the path easy for the devil's advocate,
and leaves the misuse of the slanderer a considerable field of
truth. For the truth that is suppressed by friends is the readiest
weapon of the enemy. The world, in your despite, may perhaps owe
you something, if your letter be the means of substituting once for
all a credible likeness for a wax abstraction. For, if that world
at all remember you, on the day when Damien of Molokai shall be
named a Saint, it will be in virtue of one work: your letter to the
Reverend H. B. Gage.
You may ask on what authority I speak. It was my inclement destiny
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