| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: night, and in secret buried. Legend though it may be, yet the
story is none the less valuable as showing us the attitude of the
Renaissance towards the antique world. Archaeology to them was not
a mere science for the antiquarian; it was a means by which they
could touch the dry dust of antiquity into the very breath and
beauty of life, and fill with the new wine of romanticism forms
that else had been old and outworn. From the pulpit of Niccola
Pisano down to Mantegna's 'Triumph of Caesar,' and the service
Cellini designed for King Francis, the influence of this spirit can
be traced; nor was it confined merely to the immobile arts - the
arts of arrested movement - but its influence was to be seen also
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: the others much good advice, treating them like geese the while.
The gentlemen toiled less strenuously. Mignon looked every inch the
good citizen and father and made his stay in the country an occasion
for completing his boys' education. Indeed, he spoke to them of
Parmentier!
Dinner that evening was wildly hilarious. The company ate
ravenously. Nana, in a state of great elevation, had a warm
disagreement with her butler, an individual who had been in service
at the bishop's palace in Orleans. The ladies smoked over their
coffee. An earsplitting noise of merrymaking issued from the open
windows and died out far away under the serene evening sky while
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: the zenith, Capella, Aldebaran, Sirius and the pointers of the
Bear. It was very white and beautiful. In many parts of the world
that night a pallid halo encircled it about. It was perceptibly
larger; in the clear refractive sky of the tropics it seemed as if
it were nearly a quarter the size of the moon. The frost was still
on the ground in England, but the world was as brightly lit as if
it were midsummer moonlight. One could see to read quite ordinary
print by that cold clear light, and in the cities the lamps burnt
yellow and wan.
And everywhere the world was awake that night, and throughout
Christendom a sombre murmur hung in the keen air over the country
|
