| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: proud of its riches, challenged the splendor of the generals and high
officials of the Empire, so recently gorged with orders, titles, and
honors. These grand balls were always an opportunity seized upon by
wealthy families for introducing their heiresses to Napoleon's
Praetorian Guard, in the foolish hope of exchanging their splendid
fortunes for uncertain favors. The women who believed themselves
strong enough in their beauty alone came to test their power. There,
as elsewhere, amusement was but a blind. Calm and smiling faces and
placid brows covered sordid interests, expressions of friendship were
a lie, and more than one man was less distrustful of his enemies than
of his friends.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Aeneid by Virgil: With fresh recruits their youthful chief sustain:
Not theirs a raw and unexperienc'd train,
But a firm body of embattled men.
At first, while fortune favor'd neither side,
The fight with clubs and burning brands was tried;
But now, both parties reinforc'd, the fields
Are bright with flaming swords and brazen shields.
A shining harvest either host displays,
And shoots against the sun with equal rays.
Thus, when a black-brow'd gust begins to rise,
White foam at first on the curl'd ocean fries;
Aeneid |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: snuff, "are you here? Gentlemen and ladies! I was the abbe's
first penitent, and I made him a confession, which I promise you
astonished him."
To be sure how queerly things are found out! Here is an instance.
Only the other day I was writing in these Roundabout Papers about a
certain man, whom I facetiously called Baggs, and who had abused me
to my friends, who of course told me. Shortly after that paper was
published another friend--Sacks let us call him--scowls fiercely at
me as I am sitting in perfect good humor at the club, and passes on
without speaking. A cut. A quarrel. Sacks thinks it is about him
that I was writing: whereas, upon my honor and conscience, I never
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