| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: All the sober citizens felt disgust at the petulance, the low flattery,
and base seductions which Alcibiades, in his public life, allowed
himself to employ with the view of winning the people's favor; and the
ungraciousness, pride, and oligarchical haughtiness which Marcius, on
the other hand, displayed in his, were the abhorrence of the Roman
populace. Neither of these courses can be called commendable; but a man
who ingratiates himself by indulgence and flattery, is hardly so
censurable as one who, to avoid the appearance of flattering, insults.
To seek power by servility to the people is a disgrace, but to maintain
it by terror, violence, and oppression, is not a disgrace only, but an
injustice.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: of you. A woman's glory is in the man she loves. Esteem,
consideration, honor, must they not be his who receives our all?
Well, my angel has fallen. Yes, dear, the tale you told me has
tarnished my past joys. Since then I have felt myself humiliated
in you,--you whom I thought the most honorable of men, as you are
the most loving, the most tender. I must indeed have deep
confidence in your heart, so young and pure, to make you this
avowal which costs me much. Ah! my dear love, how is it that you,
knowing your father had unjustly deprived others of their
property, that YOU can keep it?
"'And you told me of this criminal act in a room filled with the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: majestic. To mankind in the mass, movement is needed to make it
poetical; but in these hours of religious thought, when human riches
unite themselves with celestial grandeur, incredible sublimities are
felt in the silence; there is fear in the bended knee, hope in the
clasping hands. The concert of feelings in which all souls are rising
heavenward produces an inexplicable phenomenon of spirituality. The
mystical exaltation of the faithful reacts upon each of them; the
feebler are no doubt borne upward by the waves of this ocean of faith
and love. Prayer, a power electrical, draws our nature above itself.
This involuntary union of all wills, equally prostrate on the earth,
equally risen into heaven, contains, no doubt, the secret of the magic
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