| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: chant, like some divine nourishment, like everything which can
soothe and comfort life.
"Do not fail me! If you knew what anxiety I suffer the day before
they are due, or the pain a day's delay can give me! Is she ill?
Is /he/? I am midway between hell and paradise.
"/O mia cara diva/, keep up your music, exercise your voice,
practise. I am enchanted with the coincidence of employments and
hours by which, though separated by the Alps, we live by precisely
the same rule. The thought charms me and gives me courage. The
first time I undertook to plead here--I forget to tell you this--I
fancied that you were listening to me, and I suddenly felt the
Albert Savarus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: snuff-box and refresh his frozen nose. But the snuff was of a sort
which even a corpse could not endure. The watchman having closed his
right nostril with his finger, had no sooner succeeded in holding half
a handful up to the left than the corpse sneezed so violently that he
completely filled the eyes of all three. While they raised their hands
to wipe them, the dead man vanished completely, so that they
positively did not know whether they had actually had him in their
grip at all. Thereafter the watchmen conceived such a terror of dead
men that they were afraid even to seize the living, and only screamed
from a distance, "Hey, there! go your way!" So the dead tchinovnik
began to appear even beyond the Kalinkin Bridge, causing no little
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: of voice with instrument, is potent to lull sorrow to sleep, and to
kindle Aphrodite's flame.
Then Socrates, reverting in a manner to the charge: The young people
have fully proved their power to give us pleasure. Yet, charming as
they are, we still regard ourselves, no doubt, as much their betters.
What a shame to think that we should here be met together, and yet
make no effort ourselves to heighten the festivity![2]
[2] See Plat. "Prot." 347 D; "A company like this of ours, and men
such as we profess to be, do not require the help of another's
voice," etc.--Jowett. Cf. id. "Symp." 176: "To-day let us have
conversation instead; and if you will allow me, I will tell you
The Symposium |
