| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: of knowledge. Though as yet he knew it not, he had made for himself
the most exacting life possible, and the most insatiably greedy.
Merely to live, was he not compelled to be perpetually casting
nutriment into the gulf he had opened in himself? Like some beings who
dwell in the grosser world, might not he die of inanition for want of
feeding abnormal and disappointed cravings? Was not this a sort of
debauchery of the intellect which might lead to spontaneous
combustion, like that of bodies saturated with alcohol?
I had seen nothing of this first phase of his brain-development; it is
only now, at a later day, that I can thus give an account of its
prodigious fruit and results. Lambert was now thirteen.
Louis Lambert |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: On this the son of Menoetius rebuked him and said, "Meriones,
hero though you be, you should not speak thus; taunting speeches,
my good friend, will not make the Trojans draw away from the dead
body; some of them must go under ground first; blows for battle,
and words for council; fight, therefore, and say nothing."
He led the way as he spoke and the hero went forward with him.
As the sound of woodcutters in some forest glade upon the
mountains--and the thud of their axes is heard afar--even such a
din now rose from earth-clash of bronze armour and of good
ox-hide shields, as men smote each other with their swords and
spears pointed at both ends. A man had need of good eyesight now
The Iliad |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde: handwriting, isn't it?
MRS. ERLYNNE. [Takes the letter quickly.] Yes, it's - an address.
Will you ask them to call my carriage, please?
LORD WINDERMERE. Certainly.
[Goes L. and Exit.]
MRS. ERLYNNE. Thanks! What can I do? What can I do? I feel a
passion awakening within me that I never felt before. What can it
mean? The daughter must not be like the mother - that would be
terrible. How can I save her? How can I save my child? A moment
may ruin a life. Who knows that better than I? Windermere must be
got out of the house; that is absolutely necessary. [Goes L.] But
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