| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: to see us."
Mesdames Borniche, Goddet-Herau, Beaussier, Lousteau-Prangin and
Fichet, decorated with their husbands, here entered the room.
When the fourteen persons were seated, and the usual compliments were
over, Madame Hochon presented her goddaughter Agathe and Joseph.
Joseph sat in his armchair all the evening, engaged in slyly studying
the sixty faces which, from five o'clock until half past nine, posed
for him gratis, as he afterwards told his mother. Such behavior before
the aristocracy of Issoudun did not tend to change the opinion of the
little town concerning him: every one went home ruffled by his
sarcastic glances, uneasy under his smiles, and even frightened at his
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: anxiety, to assure myself that it was all a dream, and to endeavour
to lure my waking thoughts to wander to the delightful Italian
vales, I hoped soon to visit; or to picture some august ruins,
where I reclined in fancy on a mouldering column, and escaped, in
the contemplation of the heart-enlarging virtues of antiquity, from
the turmoil of cares that had depressed all the daring purposes of
my soul. But I was not long allowed to calm my mind by the exercise
of my imagination; for the third day after your birth, my child,
I was surprised by a visit from my elder brother; who came in the
most abrupt manner, to inform me of the death of my uncle. He had
left the greater part of his fortune to my child, appointing me
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: advantageous to himself; he discerns the limits of his powers, and by
doing what he knows, he provides himself with what he needs and so
does well; or, conversely, by holding aloof from what he knows not, he
avoids mistakes and thereby mishaps. And having now a test to gauge
other human beings he uses their need as a stepping-stone to provide
himself with good and to avoid evil. Whereas he who does not know
himself, but is mistaken as to his own capacity, is in like
predicament to the rest of mankind and all human matters else; he
neither knows what he wants, nor what he is doing, nor the people whom
he deals with; and being all abroad in these respects, he misses what
is good and becomes involved in what is ill.
The Memorabilia |
