| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: refused you? Listen to me, Monsieur du Bousquier, my honor doesn't
need gendarmes to drag you to the mayor's office. I sha'n't lack for
husbands, thank goodness! and I don't want a man who can't appreciate
what I'm worth. But some day you'll repent of the way you are
behaving; for I tell you now that nothing on earth, neither gold nor
silver, will induce me to return the good thing that belongs to you,
if you refuse to accept it to-day."
"But, Suzanne, are you sure?"
"Oh, monsieur!" cried the grisette, wrapping her virtue round her,
"what do you take me for? I don't remind you of the promises you made
me, which have ruined a poor young girl whose only blame was to have
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: spring, I run, I smash up the wash-tubs, the pots, the farm
implements, a fowl-house, the household things, and everything, in a
way that I cannot describe. But I dare not confess to you all my
misdeeds, because speaking of them makes my mouth water, and the thing
with which God curses me makes me itch dreadfully. If this folly bites
and pricks me, and slays my virtue, will God, who has placed this
great love in my body, condemn me to perdition?"
At this question it was the priest who scratched his ear, quite
dumbfounded by the lamentations, profound wisdom, controversies and
intelligence that this virginity secreted.
"My daughter," said he, "God has distinguished us from the beasts and
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: Shintoism tells man but little about himself and his hereafter;
Buddhism, little but about himself and what he may become. In
examining Far Eastern religion, therefore, for personality, or the
reverse, we may dismiss Shintoism as having no particular bearing
upon the subject. The only effect it has is indirect in furthering
the natural propensity of these people to an adoration of nature.
In Korea and in China, again, Confucianism is the great moral law,
as by reflection it is to a certain extent in Japan. But that in
its turn may be omitted in the present argument; inasmuch as
Confucius taught confessedly and designedly only a system of morals,
and religiously abstained from pronouncing any opinion whatever upon
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