| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: At about eleven o'clock, just as the dancers were returning to their
seats, the company had observed the entrance of the handsomest woman
in Paris, the queen of fashion, the only person wanting to the
brilliant assembly. She made it a rule never to appear till the moment
when a party had reached that pitch of excited movement which does not
allow the women to preserve much longer the freshness of their faces
or of their dress. This brief hour is, as it were, the springtime of a
ball. An hour after, when pleasure falls flat and fatigue is
encroaching, everything is spoilt. Madame de Vaudremont never
committed the blunder of remaining at a party to be seen with drooping
flowers, hair out of curl, tumbled frills, and a face like every other
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: that day and the following night! It was only
on the next morning that he came to the fortress
and proceeded to ask that the name of the thief
should be told him. The sentry who had ob-
served Azamat untying the horse and galloping
away on him did not see any necessity for con-
cealment. At the name of Azamat, Kazbich's
eyes flashed, and he set off to the village where
Azamat's father lived."
[1] "No! Russian -- bad, bad!"
"And what about the father?"
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: forced Nature to produce a black flower, which shall
henceforth be called Tulipa nigra Boxtellea.
From time to time, however, Boxtel withdrew his eyes for a
moment from the tulip and the purse, timidly looking among
the crowd, for more than anything he dreaded to descry there
the pale face of the pretty Frisian girl.
She would have been a spectre spoiling the joy of the
festival for him, just as Banquo's ghost did that of
Macbeth.
And yet, if the truth must be told, this wretch, who had
stolen what was the boast of man, and the dowry of a woman,
The Black Tulip |
