| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: Maxime burst out laughing at the idea of little Croizeau's finding him
a buyer. The firm of Maxime and Chocardelle was losing two thousand
francs, it is true, but what was the loss compared with four glorious
thousand-franc notes in hand? 'Four thousand francs of live coin!--
there are moments in one's life when one would sign bills for eight
thousand to get them,' as the Count said to me.
"Two days later the Count must see the furniture himself, and took the
four thousand francs upon him. The sale had been arranged; thanks to
little Croizeau's diligence, he pushed matters on; he had 'come round'
the widow, as he expressed it. It was Maxime's intention to have all
the furniture removed at once to a lodging in a new house in the Rue
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: a while. But his father made a fuss about it and said he wouldn't give
Nick any land if he married me, so he's going to marry Annie Iverson.
I wouldn't like to be her; Nick's awful sullen, and he'll take it out on her.
He ain't spoke to his father since he promised.'
Frances laughed. `And how do you feel about it?'
`I don't want to marry Nick, or any other man,' Lena murmured.
`I've seen a good deal of married life, and I don't care for it.
I want to be so I can help my mother and the children at home,
and not have to ask lief of anybody.'
`That's right,' said Frances. `And Mrs. Thomas thinks you
can learn dressmaking?'
My Antonia |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: in any year's Royal Academy for that matter, Mr. Lewis Morris's
poems, M. Ohnet's novels, or the plays of Mr. Henry Arthur Jones,
the true critic can, if it be his pleasure so to direct or waste
his faculty of contemplation, produce work that will be flawless in
beauty and instinct with intellectual subtlety. Why not? Dulness
is always an irresistible temptation for brilliancy, and stupidity
is the permanent BESTIA TRIONFANS that calls wisdom from its cave.
To an artist so creative as the critic, what does subject-matter
signify? No more and no less than it does to the novelist and the
painter. Like them, he can find his motives everywhere. Treatment
is the test. There is nothing that has not in it suggestion or
|
