| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: "So, we shall have Paquita!" said Laurent, rubbing his hands.
"Rascal!" answered Henri, "I shall condemn you to the Concha, if you
carry your impudence so far as to speak so of a woman before she has
become mine. . . . Turn your thoughts to dressing me, I am going out."
Henri remained for a moment plunged in joyous reflections. Let us say
it to the praise of women, he obtained all those whom he deigned to
desire. And what could one think of a woman, having no lover, who
should have known how to resist a young man armed with beauty which is
the intelligence of the body, with intelligence which is a grace of
the soul, armed with moral force and fortune, which are the only two
real powers? Yet, in triumphing with such ease, De Marsay was bound to
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: is he overcome? the enquirer will proceed to ask. And we shall not be able
to reply 'By pleasure,' for the name of pleasure has been exchanged for
that of good. In our answer, then, we shall only say that he is overcome.
'By what?' he will reiterate. By the good, we shall have to reply; indeed
we shall. Nay, but our questioner will rejoin with a laugh, if he be one
of the swaggering sort, 'That is too ridiculous, that a man should do what
he knows to be evil when he ought not, because he is overcome by good. Is
that, he will ask, because the good was worthy or not worthy of conquering
the evil'? And in answer to that we shall clearly reply, Because it was
not worthy; for if it had been worthy, then he who, as we say, was overcome
by pleasure, would not have been wrong. 'But how,' he will reply, 'can the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Koran: 'The knowledge thereof is only with my Lord; none shall manifest it at
its time but He; it is heavy in the heavens and the earth, it will not
come to you save on a sudden.'
They will ask as though thou wert privy to it, say,' knowledge
thereof is only with God,'- but most folk do not know.
Say, 'I cannot control profit or harm for myself, save what God
will. If I knew the unseen I should surely have much that is good, nor
would evil touch me; I am but a warner and a herald of good tidings
unto a people who believe.'
He it is who created you from one soul, and made therefrom its
mate to dwell therewith; and when he covered her she bore a light
The Koran |
