| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde: LADY WINDERMERE. Why do you make that your special one? [Still
seated at table L.]
LORD DARLINGTON. [Still seated L.C.] Oh, nowadays so many
conceited people go about Society pretending to be good, that I
think it shows rather a sweet and modest disposition to pretend to
be bad. Besides, there is this to be said. If you pretend to be
good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be
bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.
LADY WINDERMERE. Don't you WANT the world to take you seriously
then, Lord Darlington?
LORD DARLINGTON. No, not the world. Who are the people the world
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: something amiss that spoiled the whole; nothing in them was complete,
toilette or talk, flesh or spirit. But for his designs on Mme. de
Bargeton, Chatelet could not have endured the society. And yet the
manners and spirit of the noble in his ruined manor-house, the
knowledge of the traditions of good breeding,--these things covered a
multitude of deficiencies. Nobility of feeling was far more real here
than in the lofty world of Paris. You might compare these country
Royalists, if the metaphor may be allowed, to old-fashioned silver
plate, antiquated and tarnished, but weighty; their attachment to the
House of Bourbon as the House of Bourbon did them honor. The very
fixity of their political opinions was a sort of faithfulness. The
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: With a flavor of Will-o-the-wisp.
"Its habit of getting up late you'll agree
That it carries too far, when I say
That it frequently breakfasts at five-o'clock tea,
And dines on the following day.
"The third is its slowness in taking a jest.
Should you happen to venture on one,
It will sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed:
And it always looks grave at a pun.
"The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,
Which is constantly carries about,
The Hunting of the Snark |
