| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: could check this determined advocate of Beethoven.
"Compare," said he, "that sublime composer's works with what by common
consent is called Italian music. What feebleness of ideas, what
limpness of style! That monotony of form, those commonplace cadenzas,
those endless bravura passages introduced at haphazard irrespective of
the dramatic situation, that recurrent /crescendo/ that Rossini
brought into vogue, are now an integral part of every composition;
those vocal fireworks result in a sort of babbling, chattering,
vaporous mucic, of which the sole merit depends on the greater or less
fluency of the singer and his rapidity of vocalization.
"The Italian school has lost sight of the high mission of art. Instead
Gambara |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: is; he will not give himself airs, for I assure you he is as modest as
he is gifted. To Sallenauve he is like a little terrier; as watchful,
as faithful, and I may add as ugly,--if so good and frank a
countenance as his can ever be thought anything but handsome!
XVII
MARIE-GASTON TO MADAME LA COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE
Arcis-sur-Aube, May 16, 1839.
Madame,--Last evening the preparatory meeting took place,--a
ridiculous ceremony, very annoying to the candidates, which cannot,
however, be avoided.
Perhaps it is natural that before pledging themselves to a man who is
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: kicking my heels for agony. And now, when I can hear the actual
concussion of the air and hills, when I KNOW personally the people
who stand exposed to it, I am able to go on TANT BIEN QUE MAL with
a letter to James Payn! The blessings of age, though mighty small,
are tangible. I have heard a great deal of them since I came into
the world, and now that I begin to taste of them - Well! But this
is one, that people do get cured of the excess of sensibility; and
I had as lief these people were shot at as myself - or almost, for
then I should have some of the fun, such as it is.
You are to conceive me, then, sitting in my little gallery room,
shaken by these continual spasms of cannon, and with my eye more or
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