| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: question M. d'Espard, and you will pity me, I am sure." She raised her
head, looking Popinot in the face with pride, mingled with
impertinence; the worthy man bowed himself out respectfully.
"A nice man is your uncle," said Rastignac to Bianchon. "Is he really
so dense? Does not he know what the Marquise d'Espard is, what her
influence means, her unavowed power over people? The Keeper of the
Seals will be with her to-morrow----"
"My dear fellow, how can I help it?" said Bianchon. "Did not I warn
you? He is not a man you can get over."
"No," said Rastignac; "he is a man you must run over."
The doctor was obliged to make his bow to the Marquise and her mute
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: the nearer you come to it, you see that death is a dark and dusty
corner, where a man gets into his tomb and has the door shut after
him till the judgment day. I have few friends just now, and once I
am dead I shall have none."
"Ah, Monsieur de Beaulieu!" she exclaimed, "you forget Blanche de
Maletroit."
"You have a sweet nature, madam, and you are pleased to estimate a
little service far beyond its worth."
"It is not that," she answered. "You mistake me if you think I am
so easily touched by my own concerns. I say so, because you are
the noblest man I have ever met; because I recognise in you a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: higher, all the material in the arsenals piled up in the Acropolis,
and the machines repaired once more.
Sinews taken from bulls' necks, or else stags' hamstrings, were
commonly employed for the twists of the catapults. However, neither
stags nor bulls were in existence in Carthage. Hamilcar asked the
Ancients for the hair of their wives; all sacrificed it, but the
quantity was not sufficient. In the buildings of the Syssitia there
were twelve hundred marriageable slaves destined for prostitution in
Greece and Italy, and their hair, having been rendered elastic by the
use of unguents, was wonderfully well adapted for engines of war. But
the subsequent loss would be too great. Accordingly it was decided
Salammbo |
