| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: romance /a la/ Radcliffe, constructed on the juridical base given me
by Monsieur Regnault, when the door, opened by a woman's cautious
hand, turned on the hinges. I saw my landlady come in, a buxom, florid
dame, always good-humored, who had missed her calling in life. She was
a Fleming, who ought to have seen the light in a picture by Teniers.
" 'Well, monsieur,' said she, 'Monsieur Regnault has no doubt been
giving you his history of la Grande Breteche?'
" 'Yes, Madame Lepas.'
" 'And what did he tell you?'
"I repeated in a few words the creepy and sinister story of Madame de
Merret. At each sentence my hostess put her head forward, looking at
La Grande Breteche |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: "Unless she may be classed between the oyster and head-clerk of an
office, the two creatures nearest to marble in the zoological kingdom,
it is impossible to discern in Olympia--" Bianchon began.
"A woman of thirty," Madame de la Baudraye hastily interposed, fearing
some all too medical term.
"Then Adolphe must be two-and-twenty," the doctor went on, "for an
Italian woman at thirty is equivalent to a Parisian of forty."
"From these two facts, the romance may easily be reconstructed," said
Lousteau. "And this Cavaliere Paluzzi--what a man!--The style is weak
in these two passages; the author was perhaps a clerk in the Excise
Office, and wrote the novel to pay his tailor!"
The Muse of the Department |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: Ar. Most certainly.
Soc. And whilst we rank those who are self-disciplined in all these
matters among persons fit to rule, we are bound to place those
incapable of such conduct in the category of persons without any
pretension whatsoever to be rulers?
Ar. I assent.
Soc. Well, then, since you know the rank peculiar to either section of
mankind, did it ever strike you to consider to which of the two you
are best entitled to belong?
Yes I have (replied Aristippus). I do not dream for a moment of
ranking myself in the class of those who wish to rule. In fact,
The Memorabilia |
