| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: four o'clock was striking, there was a mob in the Palais-Royal, and
the eating-houses were beginning to fill. At this moment a coupe drew
up at the /perron/ and a young man stepped out; a man of haughty
appearance, and no doubt a foreigner; otherwise he would not have
displayed the aristocratic /chasseur/ who attended him in a plumed
hat, nor the coat of arms which the heroes of July still attacked.
This gentleman went into the Palais-Royal, and followed the crowd
round the galleries, unamazed at the slowness to which the throng of
loungers reduced his pace; he seemed accustomed to the stately step
which is ironically nicknamed the ambassador's strut; still, his
dignity had a touch of the theatrical. Though his features were
Gambara |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: elsewhere. This citizen, bound to guard the welfare of a household, to
manage property, to guide his children towards a noble future, was
living outside the line of his duty and his affections, in communion
with an attendant spirit. A priest might have thought him inspired by
the word of God; an artist would have hailed him as a great master; an
enthusiast would have taken him for a seer of the Swedenborgian faith.
At the present moment, the dilapidated, uncouth, and ruined clothes
that he wore contrasted strangely with the graceful elegance of the
woman who was sadly admiring him. Deformed persons who have intellect,
or nobility of soul, show an exquisite taste in their apparel. Either
they dress simply, convinced that their charm is wholly moral, or they
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: doubtless, many a time--the tale of that tremendous fortnight which
settled the fate of Britain, and therefore of North America; which
decided--just in those great times when the decision was to be made-
-whether we should be on a par with the other civilised nations of
Europe, like them the "heirs of all the ages," with our share not
only of Roman Christianity and Roman centralisation--a member of the
great comity of European nations, held together in one Christian
bond by the Pope--but heirs also of Roman civilisation, Roman
literature, Roman Law; and therefore, in due time, of Greek
philosophy and art. No less a question than this, it seems to me,
hung in the balance during that fortnight of autumn, 1066.
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