| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: from the river bank tucking into his belt the Tarnhelm, which has
transported hi from the mountain like the enchanted carpet of the
Arabian tales. He describes his adventures to Gutrune until
Gunther's boat is seen approaching, when Hagen seizes a cowhorn
and calls the tribesmen to welcome their chief and his bride. It
is most exhilarating, this colloquy with the startled and hastily
armed clan, ending with a thundering chorus, the drums marking
the time with mighty pulses from dominant to tonic, much as
Rossini would have made them do if he had been a pupil of
Beethoven's.
A terrible scene follows. Gunther leads his captive bride
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: the follower, if not the disciple, both of Socrates and of the Sophists.
In the argument he is not unfair, if allowance is made for a slight
rhetorical tendency, and for a natural desire to save his reputation with
the company; he is sometimes nearer the truth than Socrates. Nothing in
his language or behaviour is unbecoming the guardian of the beautiful
Charmides. His love of reputation is characteristically Greek, and
contrasts with the humility of Socrates. Nor in Charmides himself do we
find any resemblance to the Charmides of history, except, perhaps, the
modest and retiring nature which, according to Xenophon, at one time of his
life prevented him from speaking in the Assembly (Mem.); and we are
surprised to hear that, like Critias, he afterwards became one of the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: marrow of the Arctic reindeer, as well as various other parts,
including the summits of the antlers, as long as they are soft.
And herein, perchance, they have stolen a march on the cooks of
Paris. They get what usually goes to feed the fire. This is
probably better than stall-fed beef and slaughterhouse pork to
make a man of. Give me a wildness whose glance no civilization
can endure--as if we lived on the marrow of koodoos devoured raw.
There are some intervals which border the strain of the wood
thrush, to which I would migrate--wild lands where no settler has
squatted; to which, methinks, I am already acclimated.
The African hunter Cumming tells us that the skin of the eland,
Walking |
