| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: "At any rate, she is Vicomtesse de Beauseant; and she did not--"
"Did not hesitate, you would say, to bury herself here with Monsieur
Gaston de Nueil, you would say," replied the daughter of the Colonnas.
"She is only a Frenchwoman; I am an Italian, my dear sir!"
Francesca turned away from the parapet, leaving Rodolphe, and went to
the further end of the terrace, whence there is a wide prospect of the
lake. Watching her as she slowly walked away, Rodolphe suspected that
he had wounded her soul, at once so simple and so wise, so proud and
so humble. It turned him cold; he followed Francesca, who signed to
him to leave her to herself. But he did not heed the warning, and
detected her wiping away her tears. Tears! in so strong a nature.
Albert Savarus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: possible benefit of clergy. I had a mass said for him every day.
Often, in the night, he would tell me of his fears as to his
future fate; he feared his life had not been saintly enough. Poor
man! he was at work from morning till night. For whom, then, is
Paradise--if there be a Paradise? He received the last sacrament
like the saint that he was, and his death was worthy of his life.
"I alone followed him to the grave. When I had laid my only
benefactor to rest, I looked about to see how I could pay my debt
to him; I found he had neither family nor friends, neither wife
nor child. But he believed. He had a religious conviction; had I
any right to dispute it? He had spoken to me timidly of masses
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: over all the rest that belongs to the Christian religion. On the
other hand, they are most pertinaciously resisted by those who
strive after salvation solely by their observance of and
reverence for ceremonies, as if they would be saved merely
because they fast on stated days, or abstain from flesh, or make
formal prayers; talking loudly of the precepts of the Church and
of the Fathers, and not caring a straw about those things which
belong to our genuine faith. Both these parties are plainly
culpable, in that, while they neglect matters which are of weight
and necessary for salvation, they contend noisily about such as
are without weight and not necessary.
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