| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: the horse at full speed, to the admiration of the people,--the real
people, peasants and soldiers. Malaga, madame, is dexterity
personified; her little wrist or her little foot can rid her of three
or four men. She is the goddess of gymnastics."
"She must be stupid--"
"Oh, no," said Paz, "I find her as amusing as the heroine of 'Peveril
of the Peak.' Thoughtless as a Bohemian, she says everything that
comes into her head; she thinks no more about the future than you do
of the sous you fling to the poor. She says grand things sometimes.
You couldn't make her believe that an old diplomatist was a handsome
young man, not if you offered her a million of francs. Such love as
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: with which the tyrant is beset from day to day continually, as I do
prove.[21]
[17] See Hold. (crit. app.); Hartman, op. cit. p. 260.
[18] Cf. "Mem." I. ii. 38.
[19] Cf. "Anab." II. vi. 11; "Hell." VI. iv. 16.
[20] "Not of malice prepense."
[21] Or, "Such then, as I describe it, is the type of war," etc.
III
Turn now and contemplate the sort of friendship whereof it is given to
tyrants to partake. And first, let us examine with ourselves and see
if friendship is truly a great boon to mortal man.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: say the English have discovered a mode of treating the disease with
prussic acid--"
At that instant a still more piercing cry echoed through the house,
and froze us with horror.
"There! that is what I listened to all day long last year," said the
banker's wife. "It made me jump in my chair and rasped my nerves
dreadfully. But, strange to say, poor Taillefer, though he suffers
untold agony, is in no danger of dying. He eats and drinks as well as
ever during even short cessations of the pain--nature is so queer! A
German doctor told him it was a form of gout in the head, and that
agrees with Brousson's opinion."
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