| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: who, after dissipating his wife's fortune, left his son nothing but
the entailed estates of the d'Espards, burdened with a jointure. The
young Marquis was all the more straitened for money because he held a
post at Court. Being in great favor with Louis XIV., the King's
goodwill brought him a fortune. But here, monsieur, a blot stained our
escutcheon, an unconfessed and horrible stain of blood and disgrace
which I am making it my business to wipe out. I discovered the secret
among the deeds relating to the estate of Negrepelisse and the packets
of letters."
At this solemn moment the Marquis spoke without hesitation or any of
the repetition habitual with him; but it is a matter of common
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: to make acquaintance; but he did not lightly entrust to others
the secrets of his life. He was the idol of a necessitous mother,
who had brought him up at the cost of the severest privations.
Mademoiselle Schinner, the daughter of an Alsatian farmer, had
never been married. Her tender soul had been cruelly crushed,
long ago, by a rich man, who did not pride himself on any great
delicacy in his love affairs. The day when, as a young girl, in
all the radiance of her beauty and all the triumph of her life,
she suffered, at the cost of her heart and her sweet illusions,
the disenchantment which falls on us so slowly and yet so
quickly--for we try to postpone as long as possible our belief in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: Gobseck. The house was in confusion, and under cover of it we walked
up into the little salon adjoining the death-chamber. The three
children were there in tears, with two priests, who had come to watch
with the dead. Ernest came over to me, and said that his mother
desired to be alone in the Count's room.
" 'Do not go in,' he said; and I admired the child for his tone and
gesture; 'she is praying there.'
"Gobseck began to laugh that soundless laugh of his, but I felt too
much touched by the feeling in Ernest's little face to join in the
miser's sardonic amusement. When Ernest saw that we moved towards the
door, he planted himself in front of it, crying out, 'Mamma, here are
Gobseck |
