| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: a confirmed misanthrope. And besides, my dear old Basil,
if you really want to console me, teach me rather to forget what
has happened, or to see it from a proper artistic point of view.
Was it not Gautier who used to write about la consolation des arts?
I remember picking up a little vellum-covered book in your
studio one day and chancing on that delightful phrase.
Well, I am not like that young man you told me of when we
were down at Marlow together, the young man who used to say
that yellow satin could console one for all the miseries of life.
I love beautiful things that one can touch and handle.
Old brocades, green bronzes, lacquer-work, carved ivories,
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from 1984 by George Orwell: in future time?
He tried with a little more success than before to summon up the image of
O'Brien. 'We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,' O'Brien
had said to him. He knew what it meant, or thought he knew. The place where
there is no darkness was the imagined future, which one would never see,
but which, by foreknowledge, one could mystically share in. But with the
voice from the telescreen nagging at his ears he could not follow the train
of thought further. He put a cigarette in his mouth. Half the tobacco
promptly fell out on to his tongue, a bitter dust which was difficult to
spit out again. The face of Big Brother swam into his mind, displacing that
of O'Brien. Just as he had done a few days earlier, he slid a coin out of
1984 |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: fortunes, and if you're a mind to ship for the cruise, why, we'll
be glad to have you, if you will be sober and mind your own
business; if not, there is a boat alongside, and I'll have you
set ashore."
The poor half-tipsy captain had no relish to go a-pirating under
the command of his backsliding mate, so out of the ship he
bundled, and away he rowed with four or five of the crew, who,
like him, refused to join with their jolly shipmates.
The rest of them sailed away to the East Indies, to try their
fortunes in those waters, for our Captain Avary was of a high
spirit, and had no mind to fritter away his time in the West
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
