| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: the pleasure of these evenings and sought admittance to the doctor's
society. Before becoming justice of peace at Nemours he had been for
ten years a solicitor at Melun, where he conducted his own cases,
according to the custom of small towns, where there are no barristers.
He became a widower at forty-five years of age, but felt himself still
too active to lead an idle life; he therefore sought and obtained the
position of justice of peace at Nemours, which became vacant a few
months before the arrival of Doctor Minoret. Monsieur Bongrand lived
modestly on his salary of fifteen hundred francs, in order that he
might devote his private income to his son, who was studying law in
Paris under the famous Derville. He bore some resemblance to a retired
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: She turned pale and said, hurrying her words: "Felix, do not put
yourself in bonds that might prove an obstacle to our happiness. I
should die of grief for having caused a suicide like that. Child, do
you think despairing love a life's vocation? Wait for life's trials
before you judge of life; I command it. Marry neither the Church nor a
woman; marry not at all,--I forbid it. Remain free. You are twenty-one
years old--My God! can I have mistaken him? I thought two months
sufficed to know some souls."
"What hope have you?" I cried, with fire in my eyes.
"My friend, accept our help, rise in life, make your way and your
fortune and you shall know my hope. And," she added, as if she were
The Lily of the Valley |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: something of the cold thrill of dawn, cling to his work and
give it a particular address to what is best in us. I do not
know that you learn a lesson; you need not - Mill did not -
agree with any one of his beliefs; and yet the spell is cast.
Such are the best teachers; a dogma learned is only a new
error - the old one was perhaps as good; but a spirit
communicated is a perpetual possession. These best teachers
climb beyond teaching to the plane of art; it is themselves,
and what is best in themselves, that they communicate.
I should never forgive myself if I forgot THE EGOIST. It is
art, if you like, but it belongs purely to didactic art, and
|
