| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: father's side of Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, father of
Catherine; but this marriage, which was brought about as much to
convert one of the firmest supporters of the popular party to the
cause of the Medici as to facilitate the recall of that family, then
banished from Florence, never shook the stern champion from his
course, though he was persecuted by his own party for making it. In
spite of all apparent changes in his conduct (for this alliance
naturally affected it somewhat) he remained faithful to the popular
party, and declared himself openly against the Medici as soon as he
foresaw their intention to enslave Florence. This great man even
refused the offer of a principality made to him by Leo X.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: For in the groins of branches, lo!
The cancers of the orchid grow.
Silent as in the listed ring
Two chartered wrestlers strain and cling;
Dumb as by yellow Hooghly's side
The suffocating captives died;
So hushed the woodland warfare goes
Unceasing; and the silent foes
Grapple and smother, strain and clasp
Without a cry, without a gasp.
Here also sound thy fans, O God,
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: old man. The latter looked at the picture with a satisfied but not
enthusiastic manner, which seemed to say, "I have done better myself."
"There is life in the form," he remarked. "My poor master surpassed
himself there; but observe the want of truth in the background. The
man is living, certainly; he rises and is coming towards us; but the
atmosphere, the sky, the air that we breathe, see, feel,--where are
they? Besides, that is only a man; and the being who came first from
the hand of God must needs have had something divine about him which
is lacking here. Mabuse said so himself with vexation in his sober
moments."
Poussin looked alternately at the old man and at Porbus with uneasy
|
