| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: Lost Illusions
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Thirteen
Chatelet, Marie-Louise-Anais de Negrepelisse, Baronne du
Lost Illusions
The Government Clerks
Chrestien, Michel
A Bachelor's Establishment
The Secrets of a Princess
Collin, Jacques
Father Goriot
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: reassuring hopes.
"Your brother's imagination has let him astray, you see, child. It is
so natural that a poet should wish for blue and purple robes, and
hurry as eagerly after festivals as he does. It is a bird that loves
glitter and luxury with such simple sincerity, that God forgives him
if man condemns him for it."
"But he is draining our lives!" exclaimed poor Eve.
"He is draining our lives just now, but only a few months ago he saved
us by sending us the first fruits of his earnings," said the good
David. He had the sense to see that his wife was in despair, was going
beyond the limit, and that love for Lucien would very soon come back.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: inattentive ear, of looking over the house at the Italiens to see if
some one wears a red flower or a white in her hair, or watching along
the Corso for a gloved hand on a carriage door, as we used to do at
Milan; instead of snatching a mouthful of baba like a lackey finishing
off a bottle behind a door, or wearing out one's wits with giving and
receiving letters like a postman--letters that consist not of a mere
couple of tender lines, but expand to five folio volumes to-day and
contract to a couple of sheets to-morrow (a tiresome practice);
instead of dragging along over the ruts and dodging behind hedges--it
would be better to give way to the adorable passion that Jean-Jacques
Rousseau envied, to fall frankly in love with a girl like Isaure, with
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