| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: fragment of A Florentine Tragedy. By a fortunate coincidence the
poet and dramatist, Mr. Thomas Sturge Moore, happened to be on the
committee of this Society, and to him was entrusted the task of
writing an opening scene to make the play complete. {1} It is not
for me to criticise his work, but there is justification for saying
that Wilde himself would have envied, with an artist's envy, such
lines as -
We will sup with the moon,
Like Persian princes that in Babylon
Sup in the hanging gardens of the King.
In a stylistic sense Mr. Sturge Moore has accomplished a feat in
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise;
Take all these similes to your own command,
Hallow'd with sighs that burning lungs did raise;
What me your minister, for you obeys,
Works under you; and to your audit comes
Their distract parcels in combined sums.
'Lo! this device was sent me from a nun,
Or sister sanctified of holiest note;
Which late her noble suit in court did shun,
Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote;
For she was sought by spirits of richest coat,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: day resolved upon could arrive, the first misfortune of my life
occurred--an omen, as it were, of my future misery. Elizabeth had
caught the scarlet fever; her illness was severe, and she was in
the greatest danger. During her illness many arguments had been
urged to persuade my mother to refrain from attending upon her.
She had at first yielded to our entreaties, but when she heard that
the life of her favourite was menaced, she could no longer control
her anxiety. She attended her sickbed; her watchful attentions
triumphed over the malignity of the distemper--Elizabeth was saved,
but the consequences of this imprudence were fatal to her preserver.
On the third day my mother sickened; her fever was accompanied by the
Frankenstein |
