| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And what does the kingly art do when invested with supreme
power? Perhaps you may not be ready with an answer?
CRITO: Indeed I am not, Socrates.
SOCRATES: No more were we, Crito. But at any rate you know that if this
is the art which we were seeking, it ought to be useful.
CRITO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And surely it ought to do us some good?
CRITO: Certainly, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And Cleinias and I had arrived at the conclusion that knowledge
of some kind is the only good.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: getting on? I have come to breakfast with you."
"So be it," said Henri. "You won't be shocked if I make my toilette
before you?"
"How absurd!"
"We take so many things from the English just now that we might well
become as great prudes and hypocrites as themselves," said Henri.
Laurent had set before his master such a quantity of utensils, so many
different articles of such elegance, that Paul could not refrain from
saying:
"But you will take a couple of hours over that?"
"No!" said Henri, "two hours and a half."
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: Mozart holds his own by the famous /finale/ to /Don Giovanni/;
Marcello, by his psalm, /Coeli enarrant gloriam Dei/; Cimarosa, by the
air /Pria che spunti/; Beethoven by his C minor symphony; Pergolesi,
by his /Stabat Mater/; Rossini will live by /Mi manca la voce/. What
is most to be admired in Rossini is his command of variety to form; to
produce the effect here required, he has had recourse to the old
structure of the canon in unison, to bring the voices in, and merge
them in the same melody. As the form of these sublime melodies was
new, he set them in an old frame; and to give it the more relief he
has silenced the orchestra, accompanying the voices with the harps
alone. It is impossible to show greater ingenuity of detail, or to
|
