| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: more of the bold Montespan in you than of the gentle la Valliere."
I threw my arms round her. The poor lady could not refrain from
escorting me to the carriage. There her tender gaze was divided
between me and the armorial bearings.
At Beaugency night overtook me, still sunk in a stupor of the mind
produced by these strange parting words. What can be awaiting me in
this world for which I have so hungered?
To begin with, I found no one to receive me; my heart had been
schooled in vain. My mother was at the Bois de Boulogne, my father at
the Council; my brother, the Duc de Rhetore, never comes in, I am
told, till it is time to dress for dinner. Miss Griffith (she is not
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: elbow on your knee; then, if you compass the idea of this quiet and
uniform scene, this house and its interior, this company and its
interests, heightened by the pettiness of its intellect like goldleaf
beaten between sheets of parchment, ask yourself, What is human life?
Try to decide between him who scribbles jokes on Egyptian obelisks,
and him who has "bostoned" for twenty years with Du Bousquier,
Monsieur de Valois, Mademoiselle Cormon, the judge of the court, the
king's attorney, the Abbe de Sponde, Madame Granson, and tutti quanti.
If the daily and punctual return of the same steps to the same path is
not happiness, it imitates happiness so well that men driven by the
storms of an agitated life to reflect upon the blessings of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: roused herself from her apathy to acknowledge by a scathing
remark or an insulting exclamation the accidental presence of her
husband. He had built for her a riverside hut in the compound
where she dwelt in perfect seclusion. Lakamba's visits had
ceased when, by a convenient decree of Providence and the help of
a little scientific manipulation, the old ruler of Sambir
departed this life. Lakamba reigned in his stead now, having
been well served by his Arab friends with the Dutch authorities.
Syed Abdulla was the great man and trader of the Pantai. Almayer
lay ruined and helpless under the close-meshed net of their
intrigues, owing his life only to his supposed knowledge of
Almayer's Folly |
