| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: present year. I do not pretend that these are all the great events
which will happen in this period, but that those I have set down
will infallibly come to pass. It will perhaps still be objected
why I have not spoken more particularly of affairs at home, or of
the success of our armies abroad, which I might, and could very
largely have done; but those in power have wisely discouraged men
from meddling in public concerns, and I was resolved by no means to
give the least offence. This I will venture to say, that it will
be a glorious campaign for the Allies, wherein the English forces,
both by sea and land, will have their full share of honour; that
Her Majesty Queen Anne will continue in health and prosperity; and
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Confessio Amantis by John Gower: Thilke ys which that the horsmen bar
Tobrak, so that a gret partie
Was dreint; of the chivalerie
The rerewarde it tok aweie,
Cam non of hem to londe dreie.
Paulus the worthi kniht Romein
Be his aspie it herde sein, 1830
And hasteth him al that he may,
So that upon that other day
He cam wher he this host beheld,
And that was in a large feld,
Confessio Amantis |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: mockery. "Spit in the hole, man; and tune again." "Divine air! Now
is his soul ravished. Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale
the souls out of men's bodies?" "An he had been a dog that should
have howled thus, they would have hanged him." There is just as much
Shakespear here as in the inevitable quotation about the sweet south
and the bank of violets.
I lay stress on this irony of Shakespear's, this impish rejoicing in
pessimism, this exultation in what breaks the hearts of common men,
not only because it is diagnostic of that immense energy of life which
we call genius, but because its omission is the one glaring defect in
Mr Harris's otherwise extraordinarily penetrating book. Fortunately,
|
