| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: food, and the room, strewn with trusses of straw, gave the promise of
a delightful night. We did not ask for so much in those days. My
comrades could be philanthropists /gratis/--one of the commonest ways
of being philanthropic. I sat down to eat on one of the bundles of
straw.
"At the end of the table, by the side of the door opening into the
smaller room full of straw and hay, sat my old colonel, one of the
most extraordinary men I ever saw among all the mixed collection of
men it has been my lot to meet. He was an Italian. Now, whenever human
nature is truly fine in the lands of the South, it is really sublime.
I do not know whether you have ever observed the extreme fairness of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: survival of habit, and her mother went on in harsh tones: "Don't talk
to me about the man! He never set foot in church excepting to see you
and to be married. People without religion are capable of anything.
Did Guillaume ever dream of hiding anything from me, of spending three
days without saying a word to me, and of chattering afterwards like a
blind magpie?"
"My dear mother, you judge superior people too severely. If their
ideas were the same as other folks', they would not be men of genius."
"Very well, then let men of genius stop at home and not get married.
What! A man of genius is to make his wife miserable? And because he is
a genius it is all right! Genius, genius! It is not so very clever to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: are a ghost, be glad at least that you are a solitary one.
Would you like the ghosts of all those poor women you
tormented to rise up now in this gloomy place against you?
And do you intend to stand here till you are caught?"
And thus exhorting myself to action, and recognising how great
was the risk I ran in lingering, I started down the little path
leading to the arbour and the principal part of the garden,
going, it is <77> true, on tiptoe, and very much frightened
by the rustling of my petticoats, but determined to see what I
had come to see and not to be scared away by phantoms.
How regretfully did I think at that moment of the
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
