| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: childish, I must count my d'Artagnan - not d'Artagnan of the
memoirs whom Thackeray pretended to prefer - a preference, I take
the freedom of saying, in which he stands alone; not the d'Artagnan
of flesh and blood, but him of the ink and paper; not Nature's, but
Dumas's. And this is the particular crown and triumph of the
artist - not to be true merely, but to be lovable; not simply to
convince, but to enchant.
There is yet another point in the VICOMTE which I find
incomparable. I can recall no other work of the imagination in
which the end of life is represented with so nice a tact. I was
asked the other day if Dumas made me laugh or cry. Well in this my
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: from the sun."
"Just so," replied the professor.
"Then we have already passed the zone of the telescopic planets, have we not?"
asked the count.
"Can you not use your eyes?" said the professor, testily.
"If you will look you will see the zone marked clearly enough
upon the map."
Without noticing the interruption, Servadac continued his own remarks,
"The comet then, I see, is to reach its aphelion on the 15th of January,
exactly a twelvemonth after passing its perihelion."
"A twelvemonth! Not a Gallian twelvemonth?" exclaimed Rosette.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: The detonation which attacks our ears
More tardily than aught which comes along
Unto the sight of eyeballs. This takes place-
As know thou mayst- at times when clouds are dense
And one upon the other piled aloft
With wonderful upheavings- nor be thou
Deceived because we see how broad their base
From underneath, and not how high they tower.
For make thine observations at a time
When winds shall bear athwart the horizon's blue
Clouds like to mountain-ranges moving on,
Of The Nature of Things |
