| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: or sixteen thousand livres melt away between your fingers;
and then you have expenses and appearances ---- "
"Well, I don't see why you should be less of a noble than I
am, my friend; your money would be quite sufficient."
"Three hundred thousand crowns! Two-thirds too much!"
"I beg your pardon -- did you not tell me? -- I thought I
heard you say -- I fancied you had a partner ---- "
"Ah! Mordioux! that's true," cried D'Artagnan, coloring;
"there is Planchet. I had forgotten Planchet, upon my life!
Well! there are my three hundred thousand crowns broken
into. That's a pity! it was a round sum, and sounded well.
Ten Years Later |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: preferring to face the dangers of the street with no protector save
God, to the loss of the thing she had just paid for. She sprang to the
door, flung it open, and disappeared, leaving the husband and wife
dumfounded and quaking with fright.
Once outside in the street, she started away at a quick walk; but her
strength soon failed her. She heard the sound of the snow crunching
under a heavy step, and knew that the pitiless spy was on her track.
She was obliged to stop. He stopped likewise. From sheer terror, or
lack of intelligence, she did not dare to speak or to look at him. She
went slowly on; the man slackened his pace and fell behind so that he
could still keep her in sight. He might have been her very shadow.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: the sun, make us eat them and drink them for our diet. Blind us to
the offences of our beloved, cleanse them from our memories, take
them out of our mouths for ever. Let all here before Thee carry
and measure with the false balances of love, and be in their own
eyes and in all conjunctures the most guilty. Help us at the same
time with the grace of courage, that we be none of us cast down
when we sit lamenting amid the ruins of our happiness or our
integrity: touch us with fire from the altar, that we may be up
and doing to rebuild our city: in the name and by the method of
him in whose words of prayer we now conclude.
FOR SELF-FORGETFULNESS
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