| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: creature's friends can read the last scene of a tragedy. Every year,
on the second of November, the solemn day of the dead, he never passes
this youthful monument without wondering whether it does not need a
stronger woman than Augustine to endure the violent embrace of genius?
"The humble and modest flowers that bloom in the valley," he reflects,
"perish perhaps when they are transplanted too near the skies, to the
region where storms gather and the sun is scorching."
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Aiglemont, General, Marquis Victor d'
The Firm of Nucingen
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: on it are what I meant, at the beginning of this anecdote, by my
change of heart. Mr. Pinhorn's note was not only a rebuke
decidedly stern, but an invitation immediately to send him - it was
the case to say so - the genuine article, the revealing and
reverberating sketch to the promise of which, and of which alone, I
owed my squandered privilege. A week or two later I recast my
peccant paper and, giving it a particular application to Mr.
Paraday's new book, obtained for it the hospitality of another
journal, where, I must admit, Mr. Pinhorn was so far vindicated as
that it attracted not the least attention.
CHAPTER III.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: doubt. You would have thought as I did. You would not have
expected a base betrayal from one whom you had befriended and
against whom you had committed no offence. And so with perfect
confidence, perfect trust, I wrote on a piece of paper the opening
words--ending with "Go, and reform," --and signed it. When I was
about to put it in an envelope I was called into my back office, and
without thinking I left the paper lying open on my desk." He
stopped, turned his head slowly toward Billson, waited a moment,
then added: "I ask you to note this; when I returned, a little
latter, Mr. Billson was retiring by my street door." [Sensation.]
In a moment Billson was on his feet and shouting:
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
