| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: Rinieri de' Calboli, who is here spoken to. The atrocities
predicted came to pass in 1302. See G. Villani, 1. viii c. 59
v. 95. 'Twixt Po, the mount, the Reno, and the shore.] The
boundaries of Romagna.
v. 99. Lizio.] Lizio da Valbona, introduced into Boccaccio's
Decameron, G. v. N, 4.
v. 100. Manardi, Traversaro, and Carpigna.1 Arrigo Manardi of
Faenza, or as some say, of Brettinoro, Pier Traversaro, lord of
Ravenna, and Guido di Carpigna of Montefeltro.
v. 102. In Bologna the low artisan.] One who had been a
mechanic named Lambertaccio, arrived at almost supreme power in
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: talk, it promised confidences - having visibly received so many -
and had tragic literary elbows. "Ah we're practical - we're
practical!" St. George said as he saw his visitor look the place
over. "Isn't it a good big cage for going round and round? My
wife invented it and she locks me up here every morning."
Our young man breathed - by way of tribute - with a certain
oppression. "You don't miss a window - a place to look out?"
"I did at first awfully; but her calculation was just. It saves
time, it has saved me many months in these ten years. Here I
stand, under the eye of day - in London of course, very often, it's
rather a bleared old eye - walled in to my trade. I can't get away
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: Virginia, nobody is born friendly to it. It looks like a rat-
tail file, but smokes better, some think. It has a straw through
it; you pull this out, and it leaves a flue, otherwise there
would be no draught, not even as much as there is to a nail.
Some prefer a nail at first. However, I like all the French,
Swiss, German, and Italian domestic cigars, and have never cared
to inquire what they are made of; and nobody would know, anyhow,
perhaps. There is even a brand of European smoking-tobacco that
I like. It is a brand used by the Italian peasants. It is loose
and dry and black, and looks like tea-grounds. When the fire is
applied it expands, and climbs up and towers above the pipe, and
What is Man? |
