| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: writing an opening scene to make the play complete. {1} It is not
for me to criticise his work, but there is justification for saying
that Wilde himself would have envied, with an artist's envy, such
lines as -
We will sup with the moon,
Like Persian princes that in Babylon
Sup in the hanging gardens of the King.
In a stylistic sense Mr. Sturge Moore has accomplished a feat in
reconstruction, whatever opinions may be held of A Florentine
Tragedy by Wilde's admirers or detractors. The achievement is
particularly remarkable because Mr. Sturge Moore has nothing in
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: conceive virtue under the conception of law, the philanthropist under that
of doing good, the quietist under that of resignation, the enthusiast under
that of faith or love. The upright man of the world will desire above all
things that morality should be plain and fixed, and should use language in
its ordinary sense. Persons of an imaginative temperament will generally
be dissatisfied with the words 'utility' or 'pleasure': their principle of
right is of a far higher character--what or where to be found they cannot
always distinctly tell;--deduced from the laws of human nature, says one;
resting on the will of God, says another; based upon some transcendental
idea which animates more worlds than one, says a third:
on nomoi prokeintai upsipodes, ouranian
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: you--sorry to trouble you--how much 'll it set me back?' I says, real sweet.
'It'll cost you seven bucks a day, friend,' he says.
"Well, it was late, and anyway, it went down on my expense-account--gosh, if
I'd been paying it instead of the firm, I'd 'a' tramped the streets all night
before I'd 'a' let any hick tavern stick me seven great big round dollars,
believe me! So I lets it go at that. Well, the clerk wakes a nice young bell
hop--fine lad--not a day over seventy-nine years old--fought at the Battle of
Gettysburg and doesn't know it's over yet--thought I was one of the
Confederates, I guess, from the way he looked at me--and Rip van Winkle took
me up to something--I found out afterwards they called it a room, but first I
thought there'd been some mistake--I thought they were putting me in the
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