| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: and America. It is played even in Yiddish. This is remarkable in
view of the many dramas by French and German writers who treat of
the same theme. To none of them, however, is Wilde indebted.
Flaubert, Maeterlinck (some would add Ollendorff) and Scripture, are
the obvious sources on which he has freely drawn for what I do not
hesitate to call the most powerful and perfect of all his dramas.
But on such a point a trustee and executor may be prejudiced because
it is the most valuable asset in Wilde's literary estate. Aubrey
Beardsley's illustrations are too well known to need more than a
passing reference. In the world of art criticism they excited
almost as much attention as Wilde's drama has excited in the world
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: six-and-twentieth year of his life. A movement of compunction,
helped by those small indefinable influences which every personal
relation exerts on a pliant nature, had urged him into a secret
marriage, which was a blight on his life. It was an ugly story of
low passion, delusion, and waking from delusion, which needs not to
be dragged from the privacy of Godfrey's bitter memory. He had long
known that the delusion was partly due to a trap laid for him by
Dunstan, who saw in his brother's degrading marriage the means of
gratifying at once his jealous hate and his cupidity. And if
Godfrey could have felt himself simply a victim, the iron bit that
destiny had put into his mouth would have chafed him less
Silas Marner |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: trees beyond. Like sheep his fellows followed him,
until the lion and his dead remained alone in the village.
From the nearer trees the men of Mbonga saw the lion lower
his great head and seize one of his victims by the shoulder
and then with slow and stately tread move down the village
street past the open gates and on into the jungle.
They saw and shuddered, and from another tree Tarzan
of the Apes saw and smiled.
A full hour elapsed after the lion had disappeared
with his feast before the blacks ventured down from
the trees and returned to their village. Wide eyes
The Jungle Tales of Tarzan |
