| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: them so active and amusing. The appearance of this mansion and these
rooms, where everything had an aroma of staleness and mediocrity, the
spectacle offered by these two beings, cast away, as it were, on a
rock far from the world and the ideas which are life, startled
Augustine; she could here contemplate the sequel of the scene of which
the first part had struck her at the house of Lebas--a life of stir
without movement, a mechanical and instinctive existence like that of
the beaver; and then she felt an indefinable pride in her troubles, as
she reflected that they had their source in eighteen months of such
happiness as, in her eyes, was worth a thousand lives like this; its
vacuity seemed to her horrible. However, she concealed this not very
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: "'Well, well, well,' said he, 'you old doughface! Struck too, are you?
That's great! But you're too late. Francesca tells me that Anabela
talks of nothing but me, day and night. Of course, I'm awfully obliged
to you for making that chin-music to her of evenings. But, do you
know, I've an idea that I could have done it as well myself.'
"'Mrs. Judson Tate,' says I. 'Don't forget the name. You've had the
use of my tongue to go with your good looks, my boy. You can't lend me
your looks; but hereafter my tongue is my own. Keep your mind on the
name that's to be on the visiting cards two inches by three and a half
--"Mrs. Judson Tate." That's all.'
"'All right,' says Fergus, laughing again. 'I've talked with her
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: has been, whereas the new work of art is beautiful by being what
Art has never been; and to measure it by the standard of the past
is to measure it by a standard on the rejection of which its real
perfection depends. A temperament capable of receiving, through an
imaginative medium, and under imaginative conditions, new and
beautiful impressions, is the only temperament that can appreciate
a work of art. And true as this is in the case of the appreciation
of sculpture and painting, it is still more true of the
appreciation of such arts as the drama. For a picture and a statue
are not at war with Time. They take no count of its succession.
In one moment their unity may be apprehended. In the case of
|
