| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: To the questions of the countess, Beauvouloir, deeply touched, replied
that he feared, as much as she did, an attempt to poison Etienne; but
there was, he assured her, no danger as long as she nursed the child;
and in future, when obliged to feed him, she must taste the food
herself.
"If Madame la comtesse," he said, "feels anything strange upon her
tongue, a prickly, bitter, strong salt taste, reject the food. Let the
child's clothes be washed under her own eye and let her keep the key
of the chest which contains them. Should anything happen to the child
send instantly to me."
These instructions sank deep into Jeanne's heart. She begged
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: few words of prayer in spite of himself, when the waves are high,
and the sky black, nothing was able to make him forget that
little Parisian woman who smelled so sweet that she might have
been taken for a bouquet of rare flowers; who was so coaxing, so
curious, so funny; who never had the same caprice, the same
smile, or the same look twice, and who, at bottom, was worth more
than many others, either saints or sinners.
He thought of her constantly, during long hours of sleeplessness.
He carried her portrait about with him in the breast pocket of
his pea-jacket--a charming portrait in which she was smiling, and
showing her white teeth between her half-open lips. Her gentle
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: without ever finishing the story of the sorrows with which it
has pleased heaven to visit me.
"I am by birth a Cretan; my father was a well to do man, who had
many sons born in marriage, whereas I was the son of a slave
whom he had purchased for a concubine; nevertheless, my father
Castor son of Hylax (whose lineage I claim, and who was held in
the highest honour among the Cretans for his wealth, prosperity,
and the valour of his sons) put me on the same level with my
brothers who had been born in wedlock. When, however, death took
him to the house of Hades, his sons divided his estate and cast
lots for their shares, but to me they gave a holding and little
The Odyssey |
