| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Message by Honore de Balzac: take refuge each in the other's heart, as two children cling
together at the sight of a snake by a woodside. At the risk of
spoiling my story and of being taken for a coxcomb, I state my
intention at the outset.
I myself played a part in this almost commonplace tragedy; so if
it fails to interest you, the failure will be in part my own
fault, in part owing to historical veracity. Plenty of things in
real life are superlatively uninteresting; so that it is one-half
of art to select from realities those which contain possibilities
of poetry.
In 1819 I was traveling from Paris to Moulins. The state of my
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: against the "evil eye," and generally as charms against all evil.
They were carried about the person, so that probably thousands
of them were thrown into the flames by St. Paul's hearers when his
glowing words convinced them of their superstition.
Imagine an open space near the grand Temple of Diana, with fine
buildings around. Slightly raised above the crowd, the Apostle,
preaching with great power and persuasion concerning superstition,
holds in thrall the assembled multitude. On the outskirts
of the crowd are numerous bonfires, upon which Jew and Gentile
are throwing into the flames bundle upon bundle of scrolls,
while an Asiarch with his peace-officers looks on with the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: "Guard him! watch him well! Do not allow any one else to see him. Keep
the gates shut and the entrance to the dungeon closed fast. It must
not even be suspected that he still lives!"
Mannaeus had already attended to all these details, because Iaokanann
was a Jew, and, like all the Samaritans, Mannaeus hated the Jews.
Their temple on the Mount of Gerizim, which Moses had designed to be
the centre of Israel, had been destroyed since the reign of King
Hyrcanus; and the temple at Jerusalem made the Samaritans furious;
they regarded its presence as an outrage against themselves, and a
permanent injustice. Mannaeus, indeed, had forcibly entered it, for
the purpose of defiling its altar with the bones of corpses. Several
Herodias |
