| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: you indulged yourself in any pleasure? Young and beautiful, you
have lived a life of high intellectual effort, of irksome
intellectual patience with details. Well, you have your reward:
with the fall of Brandenau, the throne of your Empire is founded.'
'What thought have you in your mind?' she asked. 'Is not all
ruined?'
'Nay, my Princess, the same thought is in both our minds,' he said.
'Herr von Gondremark,' she replied, 'by all that I hold sacred, I
have none; I do not think at all; I am crushed.'
'You are looking at the passionate side of a rich nature,
misunderstood and recently insulted,' said the Baron. 'Look into
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: back the hand from the rose because of the thorn, and from
life because of death: this it is to be afraid of Pan. Highly
respectable citizens who flee life's pleasures and
responsibilities and keep, with upright hat, upon the midway
of custom, avoiding the right hand and the left, the ecstasies
and the agonies, how surprised they would be if they could
hear their attitude mythologically expressed, and knew
themselves as tooth-chattering ones, who flee from Nature
because they fear the hand of Nature's God! Shrilly sound
Pan's pipes; and behold the banker instantly concealed in the
bank parlour! For to distrust one's impulses is to be
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: if we don't turn the odds in our favor at once."
While Merle was executing this order with a rapidity of which he fully
understood the importance, the commandant waved his right hand to
enforce silence on the soldiers, who were standing at ease, and
laughing and joking around him. With another gesture he ordered them
to take up arms. When quiet was restored he turned his eyes from one
end of the road to the other, listened with anxious attention as
though he hoped to detect some stifled sound, some echo of weapons, or
steps which might give warning of the expected attack. His black eye
seemed to pierce the woods to an extraordinary depth. Perceiving no
indications of danger, he next consulted, like a savage, the ground at
The Chouans |
