| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: the heart of the kind German woman. When this confidence, which took
half the day, was over, when she saw something that was almost a smile
on the lips of the too indulgent mother, Modeste fell upon her breast
in tears.
"Oh, mother!" she said amid her sobs, "you, whose heart, all gold and
poetry, is a chosen vessel, chosen of God to hold a sacred love, a
single and celestial love that endures for life; you, whom I wish to
imitate by loving no one but my husband,--you will surely understand
what bitter tears I am now shedding. This butterfly, this Psyche of my
thoughts, this dual soul which I have nurtured with maternal care, my
love, my sacred love, this living mystery of mysteries--it is about to
Modeste Mignon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: what you have said, the audience would have thought him raving, and he
would have been ejected from the gymnasium. But you have argued so
excellently well that you have not only persuaded your hearers, but have
brought your opponent to an agreement. For just as in the law courts, if
two witnesses testify to the same fact, one of whom seems to be an honest
fellow and the other a rogue, the testimony of the rogue often has the
contrary effect on the judges' minds to what he intended, while the same
evidence if given by the honest man at once strikes them as perfectly true.
And probably the audience have something of the same feeling about yourself
and Prodicus; they think him a Sophist and a braggart, and regard you as a
gentleman of courtesy and worth. For they do not pay attention to the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: was in very truth the Elias so much talked of, he would have power to
protect himself; and if he were only an ordinary man, his murder was
of no importance.
Mannaeus stood beside his chair, and read his master's thoughts.
Vitellius beckoned him to his side and gave him an order for the
execution, to be transmitted to the soldiers placed on guard over the
dungeon. This execution would be a relief, he thought. In a few
moments all would be over!
But for once Mannaeus did not perform a commission satisfactorily. He
left the hall but soon returned, in a state of great perturbation.
During forty years he had exercised the functions of the public
Herodias |
