| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: past; and with it he mingles the exquisite delights of the soul, which
makes him the prince of artists. Then the poet's passion becomes a
fine poem in which human proportion is often set at nought. Does not
the poet then place his mistress far higher than women crave to sit?
Like the sublime Knight of la Mancha, he transfigures a peasant girl
to be a princess. He uses for his own behoof the wand with which he
touches everything, turning it into a wonder, and thus enhances the
pleasure of loving by the glorious glamour of the ideal.
Such a love is the very essence of passion. It is extreme in all
things, in its hopes, in its despair, in its rage, in its melancholy,
in its joy; it flies, it leaps, it crawls; it is not like any of the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from 1984 by George Orwell: And yet after only a few years the same thing had happened over again.
The dead men had become martyrs and their degradation was forgotten. Once
again, why was it? In the first place, because the confessions that they
had made were obviously extorted and untrue. We do not make mistakes of
that kind. All the confessions that are uttered here are true. We make
them true. And above all we do not allow the dead to rise up against us.
You must stop imagining that posterity will vindicate you, Winston.
Posterity will never hear of you. You will be lifted clean out from the
stream of history. We shall turn you into gas and pour you into the
stratosphere. Nothing will remain of you, not a name in a register, not
a memory in a living brain. You will be annihilated in the past as well
1984 |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: away from the kraals like a hyena. Still, none would touch her because
of the spirit in her, not even those whose children she had murdered.
So Umslopogaas and Nada came to the glen where the child-slayer lived,
and sat down by a pool of water not far from the mouth of her cave,
weaving flowers into a garland. Presently Umslopogaas left Nada, to
search for rock lilies which she loved. As he went he called back to
her, and his voice awoke the woman who was sleeping in her cave, for
she came out by night only, like a jackal. Then the woman stepped
forth, smelling blood and having a spear in her hand. Presently she
saw Nada seated upon the grass weaving flowers, and crept towards her
to kill her. Now as she came--so the child told me--suddenly a cold
Nada the Lily |
