| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: in bed, he turns away from her as far as possible, and speaks not
a word to her, like a monk to whom speech is forbidden. Not once
does he look at her, nor show her any courtesy. Why not?
Because his heart does not go out to her. She was certainly very
fair and winsome, but not every one is pleased and touched by
what is fair and winsome. The knight has only one heart, and
this one is really no longer his, but has been entrusted to some
one else, so that he cannot bestow it elsewhere. Love, which
holds all hearts beneath its sway, requires it to be lodged in a
single place. All hearts? No, only those which it esteems. And
he whom love deigns to control ought to prize himself the more.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: arm.
"I wish you no ill," Rosalie went on. "Be quite easy; I shall not say
a word to my mother, and you can meet Jerome as often as you please."
"But, mademoiselle," said Mariette, "it is perfectly respectable;
Jerome honestly means to marry me--"
"But then," said Rosalie, "why meet at night?"
Mariette was dumfounded, and could make no reply.
"Listen, Mariette; I am in love too! In secret and without any return.
I am, after all, my father's and mother's only child. You have more to
hope for from me than from any one else in the world--"
"Certainly, mademoiselle, and you may count on us for life or death,"
Albert Savarus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: leave and drove away.
Many days later--days that passed without recognition or
remembrance--the girl found herself sitting on a bench waiting for a
bus in the middle of the desert. As she sat there gazing at the
distant mountains, conscious of little more than the rising heat,
she heard herself say, "I don't know what to do."
"Whatever you do will be foolish," said a voice from behind her.
"What?" the girl asked with some surprise, not sure whether she was
listening to a person or a hallucination. The voice was that of an
old woman with bony hands.
"Good decisions come from good values," continued the old woman, as
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