| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: As for the THIRTEEN, they were all men of the stamp of Trelawney, Lord
Byron's friend, who was, they say, the original of his "Corsair." They
were all fatalists, men of nerve and poesy, weary of leading flat and
empty lives, driven toward Asiatic enjoyments by forces all the more
excessive because, long dormant, they awoke furious. One of them,
after re-reading "Venice Preserved," and admiring the sublime union of
Pierre and Jaffier, began to reflect on the virtues shown by men who
are outlawed by society, on the honesty of galley-slaves, the
faithfulness of thieves among each other, the privileges of exorbitant
power which such men know how to win by concentrating all ideas into a
single will. He saw that Man is greater than men. He concluded that
Ferragus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: of danger, when the old slips from us, and we have not yet planted our feet
on the new. We hear the voice from Sinai thundering no more, and the still
small voice of reason is not yet heard. We have proved the religion our
mothers fed us on to be a delusion; in our bewilderment we see no rule by
which to guide our steps day by day; and yet every day we must step
somewhere."
The stranger leaned forward and spoke more quickly. "We have never once
been taught by word or act to distinguish between religion and the moral
laws on which it has artfully fastened itself, and from which it has sucked
its vitality. When we have dragged down the weeds and creepers that
covered the solid wall and have found them to be rotten wood, we imagine
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: upon the roses of her joy, to show her the love she had ignored, and
sweetly shed a thousand drops of wormwood into the honey of her bridal
month. As Madame du Bousquier drove back to Alencon, she chanced to
meet Madame Granson at the corner of the rue Val-Noble. The glance of
the mother, dying of her grief, struck to the heart of the poor woman.
A thousand maledictions, a thousand flaming reproaches, were in that
look: Madame du Bousquier was horror-struck; that glance predicted and
called down evil upon her head.
The evening after the catastrophe, Madame Granson, one of the persons
most opposed to the rector of the town, and who had hitherto supported
the minister of Saint-Leonard, began to tremble as she thought of the
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