| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: needs in any way he chooses; but the tyrant cannot do so, seeing that
the largest expenses of a monarch are also the most necessary, being
devoted to various methods of safeguarding his life, and to cut down
any of them would be little less than suicidal.[18]
[18] Or, "and to curtail these would seem to be self-slaughter."
Or, to put it differently, why should any one expend compassion on a
man, as if he were a beggar, who has it in his power to satisfy by
just and honest means his every need?[19] Surely it would be more
appropriate to call that man a wretched starveling beggar rather, who
through lack of means is driven to live by ugly shifts and base
contrivances.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: cultivate that flower and make it bloom; for its wild yet gentle
fragrance can never fail,--it is eternal.
Do me the honor to believe that there is nothing low or
commonplace in me. Were I Bettina, for I know to whom you allude,
I should never have become Madame von Arnim; and had I been one of
Lord Byron's many loves, I should be at this moment in a cloister.
You have touched me to the quick. You do not know me, but you
shall know me. I feel within me something that is sublime, of
which I dare speak without vanity. God has put into my soul the
roots of that Alpine flower born on the summits of which I speak,
and I cannot plant it in an earthen pot upon my window-sill and
Modeste Mignon |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: contrary, he rather liked the bird, and, out of devilry, tried to
teach him oaths. Felicite, whom his manner alarmed, put Loulou in the
kitchen, took off his chain and let him walk all over the house.
When he went downstairs, he rested his beak on the steps, lifted his
right foot and then his left one; but his mistress feared that such
feats would give him vertigo. He became ill and was unable to eat.
There was a small growth under his tongue like those chickens are
sometimes afflicted with. Felicite pulled it off with her nails and
cured him. One day, Paul was imprudent enough to blow the smoke of his
cigar in his face; another time, Madame Lormeau was teasing him with
the tip of her umbrella and he swallowed the tip. Finally he got lost.
A Simple Soul |
