| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: up to this mornin' I don't know yet, but I want to tell ye it 's
the wrong time o' day for ye to make calls, and the night's not
much better, unless ye're particularly invited."
Quigg smothered a curse and turned on his heel toward the village.
When he reached O'Leary's, Dempsey of the Executive Committee met
him at the door. He and McGaw had spent the whole morning in
devising plans to keep Tom out of the board-room.
Quigg's report was not reassuring. She would be paid her
insurance money, he said, and would certainly be at the meeting
that night.
The three adjourned to the room over the bar. McGaw began pacing
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: is crushed with work, the painter with no occupation, if he feels
himself to be a man of genius, gnaws his entrails. Competition,
rivalry, calumny assail talent. Some, in desperation, plunge into the
abyss of vice, others die young and unknown because they have
discounted their future too soon. Few of these figures, originally
sublime, remain beautiful. On the other hand, the flagrant beauty of
their heads is not understood. An artist's face is always exorbitant,
it is always above or below the conventional lines of what fools call
the /beau-ideal/. What power is it that destroys them? Passion. Every
passion in Paris resolves into two terms: gold and pleasure. Now, do
you not breathe again? Do you not feel air and space purified? Here is
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac: "Business is very bad," replied Elie. "You artists have such
pretensions! You talk of two hundred francs when you haven't put six
sous' worth of color on a canvas. However, you are a good fellow, I'll
say that. You are steady; and I've come to put a good bit of business
in your way."
"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," said Fougeres. "Do you know Latin?"
"No."
"Well, it means that the Greeks never proposed a good bit of business
to the Trojans without getting their fair share of it. In the olden
time they used to say, 'Take my horse.' Now we say, 'Take my bear.'
Well, what do you want, Ulysses-Lagingeole-Elie Magus?"
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