| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: thought to bear upon his facts is a man of genius; but the man of the
highest genius does not display genius at all times; if he did, he
would be like to God.
After four years of this life, with never a shock to the soul, nor a
word that produced the slightest discord in this sweet concert of
sentiment, the countess, feeling herself developed like a beautiful
plant in a fertile soil, caressed by the sun of a cloudless sky, awoke
to a sense of a new self. This crisis of her life, the subject of this
Scene, would be incomprehensible without certain explanations, which
may extenuate in the eyes of women the wrong-doing of this young
countess, a happy wife, a happy mother, who seems, at first sight,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: that of the rank money-passion, exerted by their conditions FOR
them, has nothing to do with the matter: it's only a question of
what fantastic, yet perfectly possible, development of my own
nature I mayn't have missed. It comes over me that I had then a
strange ALTER EGO deep down somewhere within me, as the full-blown
flower is in the small tight bud, and that I just took the course,
I just transferred him to the climate, that blighted him for once
and for ever."
"And you wonder about the flower," Miss Staverton said. "So do I,
if you want to know; and so I've been wondering these several
weeks. I believe in the flower," she continued, "I feel it would
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: eventually equal to his own. The house of Claes still maintained its
moderate scale of living, and bought woodlands somewhat the worse for
wars that had laid waste the country, but which in ten years' time, if
well-preserved, would return an enormous value.
The upper ranks of society in Douai, which Monsieur Claes frequented,
appreciated so justly the noble character and qualities of his wife
that, by tacit consent she was released from those social duties to
which the provinces cling so tenaciously. During the winter season,
when she lived in town, she seldom went into society; society came to
her. She received every Wednesday, and gave three grand dinners every
month. Her friends felt that she was more at ease in her own house;
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