| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: On Flore's presentation, Philippe made a half-timid bow to Max.
"Uncle, I have some pictures to return to you; they are now at
Monsieur Hochon's. Will you be kind enough to come over some day and
identify them."
Saying these last words in a curt tone, lieutenant-colonel Philippe
Bridau departed. The tone of his visit made, if possible, a deeper
impression on Flore's mind, and also on that of Max, than the shock
they had felt at the first sight of that horrible campaigner. As soon
as Philippe had slammed the door, with the violence of a disinherited
heir, Max and Flore hid behind the window-curtains to watch him as he
crossed the road, to the Hochons'.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: Of invisible spirits admitted, baptized
By death to a new name and nature--surprised
'Mid the songs of the seraphs, hears faintly, and far,
Some voice from the earth, left below a dim star,
Calling to her forlornly; and (sadd'ning the psalms
Of the angels, and piercing the Paradise palms!)
The name borne 'mid earthly beloveds on earth
Sigh'd above some lone grave in the land of her birth;--
So that one word . . . Lucile! . . . stirr'd the Soeur Seraphine,
For a moment. Anon she resumed here serene
And concentrated calm.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: indefeasible charge, and my decisions absolute for the time
and case. The moralist is not a judge of appeal, but an
advocate who pleads at my tribunal. He has to show not the
law, but that the law applies. Can he convince me? then he
gains the cause. And thus you find Christ giving various
counsels to varying people, and often jealously careful to
avoid definite precept. Is he asked, for example, to divide
a heritage? He refuses: and the best advice that he will
offer is but a paraphrase of that tenth commandment which
figures so strangely among the rest. TAKE HEED, AND BEWARE
OF COVETOUSNESS. If you complain that this is vague, I have
|
