| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: arid bigot accused her daughter of perfect insensibility. Rosalie knew
her mother well enough to be sure that if she had thought young
Monsieur de Soulas /nice/, she would have drawn down on herself a
smart reproof. Thus, to all her mother's incitement she replied merely
by such phrases as are wrongly called Jesuitical--wrongly, because the
Jesuits were strong, and such reservations are the /chevaux de frise/
behind which weakness takes refuge. Then the mother regarded the girl
as a dissembler. If by mischance a spark of the true nature of the
Wattevilles and the Rupts blazed out, the mother armed herself with
the respect due from children to their parents to reduce Rosalie to
passive obedience.
Albert Savarus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: Likewise beheld I down the steps descending
So many splendours, that I thought each light
That in the heaven appears was there diffused.
And as accordant with their natural custom
The rooks together at the break of day
Bestir themselves to warm their feathers cold;
Then some of them fly off without return,
Others come back to where they started from,
And others, wheeling round, still keep at home;
Such fashion it appeared to me was there
Within the sparkling that together came,
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: watered with some deadly acid. How should a lover be aware of bigotry
so well hidden?
This was the course of young Granville's feelings during that
fortnight, devoured by him like a book of which the end is absorbing.
Angelique, carefully watched by him, seemed the gentlest of creatures,
and he even caught himself feeling grateful to Madame Bontems, who, by
implanting so deeply the principles of religion, had in some degree
inured her to meet the troubles of life.
On the day named for signing the inevitable contract, Madame Bontems
made her son-in-law pledge himself solemnly to respect her daughter's
religious practices, to allow her entire liberty of conscience, to
|
