| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: nothing left. Nothing! was not the world created from nothing?
Genius should follow the Divine example; I begin with God-like
forgiveness, but as yet I know not whether I possess the God-like
power. You need only tremble lest I should go astray; for you
would be answerable for my sins. Alas! I pity you, for you will
have no part in the future towards which I go, with work as my
guide."
After penning this rhetorical effusion, full of the sombre dignity
which an artist of one-and-twenty is rather apt to overdo, Lucien's
thoughts went back to them at home. He saw the pretty rooms which
David had furnished for him, at the cost of part of his little store,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard: knowledge, or, perchance, send thoughts clothed in his own shape
to work his errand."
"How do you know that I did not believe Arbuthnot's story?"
Bickley asked in a rather cross voice and avoiding the direct
issue. "Do you also send thoughts to work your errands clothed in
your own shape, Lady Yva?"
"Alas! not so, though perhaps I could if I might. It is very
simple, Bickley. Standing here, I heard you say that although the
sun was well down there was no one to meet you as Humphrey had
expected, and from those words and your voice I guessed the
rest."
When the World Shook |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: Sancerre to return one of its great men at the elections. She made
Gatien Boirouge write to the great physician Bianchon, whom he claimed
as a cousin through the Popinots. Then she persuaded an old friend of
the departed Madame Lousteau to stir up the journalist's ambitions by
letting him know that certain persons in Sancerre were firmly bent on
electing a deputy from among the distinguished men in Paris.
Tired of her commonplace neighbors, Madame de la Baudraye would thus
at last meet really illustrious men, and might give her fall the
lustre of fame.
Neither Lousteau nor Bianchon replied; they were waiting perhaps till
the holidays. Bianchon, who had won his professor's chair the year
The Muse of the Department |
