| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: your heart."
" ' "Protest the bill! Can you mean it?" she cried, with her eyes upon
me; "could you have so little consideration for me?"
" ' "If the King himself owed money to me, madame, and did not pay it,
I should summons him even sooner than any other debtor."
" 'While we were speaking, somebody tapped gently at the door.
" ' "I cannot see any one," she cried imperiously.
" ' "But, Anastasie, I particularly wish to speak to you."
" ' "Not just now, dear," she answered in a milder tone, but with no
sign of relenting.
" ' "What nonsense! You are talking to some one," said the voice, and
 Gobseck |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: in reality death, and that they have found them out to be deserving of the
death which they desire.
And they are right, Simmias, in thinking so, with the exception of the
words 'they have found them out'; for they have not found out either what
is the nature of that death which the true philosopher deserves, or how he
deserves or desires death. But enough of them:--let us discuss the matter
among ourselves: Do we believe that there is such a thing as death?
To be sure, replied Simmias.
Is it not the separation of soul and body? And to be dead is the
completion of this; when the soul exists in herself, and is released from
the body and the body is released from the soul, what is this but death?
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: find me disengaged; a string of hansoms may be observed (by Her
Majesty) bowling gaily through St James's Park; and in a quarter
of an hour the party surrounds one of the best appointed boards
in London.
But at the time of which we write the house in the King's Road
(let us still continue to call it No. 233) was kept very quiet;
when Michael entertained guests it was at the halls of Nichol or
Verrey that he would convene them, and the door of his private
residence remained closed against his friends. The upper storey,
which was sunny, was set apart for his father; the drawing-room
was never opened; the dining-room was the scene of Michael's
|