| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: manhood strength and integrity. Above all, we must understand--
for it is the key to much that we are to see--that the god, since
his desire is toward a higher and fuller life, must long in his
inmost soul for the advent of that greater power whose first
work, though this he does not see as yet, must be his own
undoing.
In the midst of all these far-reaching ideas, it is amusing to
find Wagner still full of his ingrained theatrical
professionalism, and introducing effects which now seem
old-fashioned and stagey with as much energy and earnestness as
if they were his loftiest inspirations. When Wotan wrests the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: unmistakeable, and by a turn dating from a particular hour, his
resumption of his campaign after a diplomatic drop, a calculated
absence of three nights - of his being definitely followed, tracked
at a distance carefully taken and to the express end that he should
the less confidently, less arrogantly, appear to himself merely to
pursue. It worried, it finally quite broke him up, for it proved,
of all the conceivable impressions, the one least suited to his
book. He was kept in sight while remaining himself - as regards
the essence of his position - sightless, and his only recourse then
was in abrupt turns, rapid recoveries of ground. He wheeled about,
retracing his steps, as if he might so catch in his face at least
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: wonderful arrangement and induced a kind of belief that their
real purpose was ornamental rather than deadly.
At the further end of the saloon the president, assisted by four
secretaries, occupied a large platform. His chair, supported by
a carved gun-carriage, was modeled upon the ponderous proportions
of a 32-inch mortar. It was pointed at an angle of ninety degrees,
and suspended upon truncheons, so that the president could balance
himself upon it as upon a rocking-chair, a very agreeable fact in
the very hot weather. Upon the table (a huge iron plate supported
upon six carronades) stood an inkstand of exquisite elegance, made
of a beautifully chased Spanish piece, and a sonnette, which, when
From the Earth to the Moon |
