| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: that I fancy I see the dying woman whiter than her sheets; her
glittering eyes frighten me; I shall dream of her to-night.--But you
must have formed some idea as to the instructions contained in that
extraordinary will.'
" 'Monsieur,' said he, with comical reticence, 'I never allow myself
to criticise the conduct of a person who honors me with the gift of a
diamond.'
"However, I soon loosened the tongue of the discreet notary of
Vendome, who communicated to me, not without long digressions, the
opinions of the deep politicians of both sexes whose judgments are law
in Vendome. But these opinions were so contradictory, so diffuse, that
La Grande Breteche |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: point you once more to the magnificent poetry of the later Isaiah
which commences at the 40th chapter of the Book of Isaiah, and say--
There, upon the very face of the document, stands written the fact
that the sympathy between the faithful Persian and the faithful Jew-
-the two puritans of the Old World, the two haters of lies,
idolatries, superstitions, was actually as intense as it ought to
have been, as it must have been.
Be that as it may, the return of the Jews to Jerusalem preserved for
us the Old Testament, while it restored to them a national centre, a
sacred city, like that of Delphi to the Greeks, Rome to the Romans,
Mecca to the Muslim, loyalty to which prevented their being utterly
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: <158> I should have paid little attention to the threats issuing
from the pulpit; but, as it was, I fell to making good resolutions.
This is always a bad sign,--only those who break them make them;
and if you simply do as a matter of course that which is right as it comes,
any preparatory resolving to do so becomes completely superfluous.
I have for some years past left off making them on New Year's Eve,
and only the gale happening as it did reduced me to doing so last night;
for I have long since discovered that, though the year and the resolutions
may be new, I myself am not, and it is worse than useless putting new
wine into old bottles.
"But I am not an old bottle," said Irais indignantly, when I held
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
