| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: "And yet," he went on, after a pause, with a doubtful shrug, "perhaps
we have not two natures; perhaps we are merely gifted with personal
and perfectible qualities, of which the development within us produces
certain unobserved phenomena of activity, penetration, and vision. In
our love of the marvelous, a passion begotten of our pride, we have
translated these effects into poetical inventions, because we did not
understand them. It is so convenient to deify the incomprehensible!
"I should, I own, lament over the loss of my illusions. I so much
wished to believe in our twofold nature and in Swedenborg's angels.
Must this new science destroy them? Yes; for the study of our unknown
properties involves us in a science that appears to be materialistic,
Louis Lambert |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: meat. Stretched on the ground was an Englishman, dressed in a blouse, and
with a heavy, sullen face. On the stone beside him was Dirk, the
Hottentot, sharpening a bowie knife.
She held her breath. Not a cony in all the rocks was so still.
"They can never find me here," she said; and she knelt, and listened to
every word they said. She could hear it all.
"You may have all the money," said the Bushman; "but I want the cask of
brandy. I will set the roof alight in six places, for a Dutchman burnt my
mother once alive in a hut, with three children."
"You are sure there is no one else on the farm?" said the navvy.
"No, I have told you till I am tired," said Dirk; "The two Kaffirs have
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: of wine. He was a spare man, and his bald head, garnished with a few
spare locks at the back of it, was pear-shaped in conformation. His
sunken eyes, overtopped by heavy black brows and surrounded by
discolored circles, his nose, thin and sharp like the blade of a
knife, the strongly marked jawbone, the hollow cheeks, and the oblong
tendency of all these lines, together with his unnaturally long and
flat chin, contributed to give a peculiar expression to his
countenance,--something between that of a retired professor of
rhetoric and a rag-picker.
"Monsieur Margaritis," cried Madame Vernier, addressing him, "come,
stir about! Here is a gentleman whom my husband sends to you, and you
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