| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: inclination of our souls was changed. We were both plunged into gloomy
reflections, saddened by the recital of a drama which explained the
sudden presentiment which had seized us on seeing Cambremer. Each of
us had enough knowledge of life to divine all that our guide had not
told of that triple existence. The anguish of those three beings rose
up before us as if we had seen it in a drama, culminating in that of
the father expiating his crime. We dared not look at the rock where
sat the fatal man who held the whole countryside in awe. A few clouds
dimmed the skies; mists were creeping up from the horizon. We walked
through a landscape more bitterly gloomy than any our eyes had ever
rested on, a nature that seemed sickly, suffering, covered with salty
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: Carolsfeld satisfied him as Tristan, or Schroder Devrient as
Fidelio. It is just as likely as not that the next Schnorr or
Schroder may arise in England. If that should actually happen,
neither of them will need any further authority than their own
genius and Wagner's scores for their guidance. Certainly the less
their spontaneous impulses are sophisticated by the very stagey
traditions which Bayreuth is handing down from the age of
Crummles, the better.
WAGNERIAN SINGERS
No nation need have much difficulty in producing a race of
Wagnerian singers. With the single exception of Handel, no
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: mandarin in painted silk would be. They are the most individual
of things, all two-wheeled, all bright yellow and the same size
it is true, but upon each there are they gayest of little
paintings, such paintings as one sees in England at times upon an
ice-cream barrow. Sometimes the picture will present a
scriptural subject, sometimes a scene of opera, sometimes a dream
landscape or a trophy of fruits or flowers, and the harness--now
much out of repair--is studded with brass. Again and again I
have passed strings of these gay carts; all Sicily must be swept
of them.
Through the dust I came to Aquileia, which is now an old
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