| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: again. She looked gloomily around the charming room to which she had
given a soul and a voice, asking herself if it were done in vain, and
this thought brought her back to her preparations.
"Francine," she said, drawing her into a little dressing-room which
adjoined her chamber and was lighted through a small round window
opening on a dark corner of the fortifications where they joined the
rock terrace of the Promenade, "put everything in order. As for the
salon, you can leave that as it is," she added, with a smile which
women reserve for their nearest friends, the delicate sentiment of
which men seldom understand.
"Ah! how sweet you are!" exclaimed the little maid.
The Chouans |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: Seeing this little isle on which we stand,
This England, this sea-lion of the sea,
By ignorant demagogues is held in fee,
Who love her not: Dear God! is this the land
Which bare a triple empire in her hand
When Cromwell spake the word Democracy!
ON THE MASSACRE OF THE CHRISTIANS IN BULGARIA
Christ, dost Thou live indeed? or are Thy bones
Still straitened in their rock-hewn sepulchre?
And was Thy Rising only dreamed by her
Whose love of Thee for all her sin atones?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: he had thrown off his mirthful mood, as he had thrown down his
table napkin, at the first thought of this role. The night was
dark. The mute servitor, his guide to the chamber where the dying
man lay, lighted the way so dimly that Death, aided by cold,
silence, and darkness, and it may be by a reaction of
drunkenness, could send some sober thoughts through the
spendthrift's soul. He examined his life, and became thoughtful,
like a man involved in a lawsuit on his way to the Court.
Bartolommeo Belvidero, Don Juan's father, was an old man of
ninety, who had devoted the greatest part of his life to business
pursuits. He had acquired vast wealth in many a journey to
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