| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: and sharp distress had added months to every year--the poor old
Marquis saw the death of the loveliest of human creatures, a noble
woman in whom the charm of the feminine figures of the sixteenth
century lived again, a charm now lost save to men's imaginations. With
her death the joy died out of his old age. It was one of those
terrible shocks which reverberate through every moment of the years
that follow. For a few moments he stood beside the bed where his wife
lay, with her hands folded like a saint, then he kissed her on the
forehead, turned away, drew out his watch, broke the mainspring, and
hung it up beside the hearth. It was eleven o'clock in the morning.
"Mlle. d'Esgrignon," he said, "let us pray God that this hour may not
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: remorse?
"I, who would creep back and hide in the hedge only to hear your
footsteps as you went homewards--I may henceforth admire you at my
leisure, see you busy, moving, smiling, prattling! An endless joy!
You cannot imagine all the gladness it is to me to see you going
and coming; only a man can know that deep delight. Your least
movement gives me greater pleasure than a mother even can feel as
she sees her child asleep or at play. I love you with every kind
of love in one. The grace of your least gesture is always new to
me. I fancy I could spend whole nights breathing your breath; I
would I could steal into every detail of your life, be the very
Louis Lambert |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: them for us. There are moments when the odour of lilas blanc passes
suddenly across me, and I have to live the strangest month of my life
over again. I wish I could change places with you, Dorian. The world
has cried out against us both, but it has always worshipped you.
It always will worship you. You are the type of what the age
is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found. I am
so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue,
or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself!
Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are
your sonnets."
Dorian rose up from the piano and passed his hand through his hair.
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
