| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: of great families whom I see in Paris on the hunt after heiresses,
and who have already sent one, the grand equerry, the young duke,
among the Vilquins. Therefore, believe me, the sentiments I have
now expressed are fixed in my mind as a rule of life, from which I
have abstracted all influences of romance or of actual fact. Prove
to me, therefore, that you have one of those souls which may be
forgiven for its disobedience to the common law, by perceiving and
comprehending the spirit of this letter as you did that of my
first letter. If you are destined to a middle-class life, obey the
iron law which holds society together. Lifted in mind above other
women, I admire you; but if you seek to obey an impulse which you
Modeste Mignon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: can, for jealousy has no place in the celestial choir. But when they go to
banquet and festival, then they move up the steep to the top of the vault
of heaven. The chariots of the gods in even poise, obeying the rein, glide
rapidly; but the others labour, for the vicious steed goes heavily,
weighing down the charioteer to the earth when his steed has not been
thoroughly trained:--and this is the hour of agony and extremest conflict
for the soul. For the immortals, when they are at the end of their course,
go forth and stand upon the outside of heaven, and the revolution of the
spheres carries them round, and they behold the things beyond. But of the
heaven which is above the heavens, what earthly poet ever did or ever will
sing worthily? It is such as I will describe; for I must dare to speak the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: repeated with all his soul: 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have
mercy upon me!'
But he had heard everything. He had heard how the silk rustled
when she took off her dress, how she stepped with bare feet on
the floor, and had heard how she rubbed her feet with her hand.
He felt his own weakness, and that he might be lost at any
moment. That was why he prayed unceasingly. He felt rather as
the hero in the fairy-tale must have felt when he had to go on
and on without looking round. So Sergius heard and felt that
danger and destruction were there, hovering above and around him,
and that he could only save himself by not looking in that
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