| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: for the use of others, and with reference to their wants and their
wishes, does not work with interest, and consequently cannot put
into his work what is best in him. Upon the other hand, whenever a
community or a powerful section of a community, or a government of
any kind, attempts to dictate to the artist what he is to do, Art
either entirely vanishes, or becomes stereotyped, or degenerates
into a low and ignoble form of craft. A work of art is the unique
result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact
that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact
that other people want what they want. Indeed, the moment that an
artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: Adam pressed her hand when no one was looking.
"Poor, dear Thaddeus," he said, "he is trying to make himself
disagreeable where most men would try to seem more amiable than I."
"Oh!" she said, "I am not sure but what there is some CALCULATION in
his behavior; he would have taken in an ordinary woman."
Half an hour later, when the chasseur, Boleslas, called out "Gate!"
and the carriage was waiting for it to swing back, Clementine said to
her husband, "Where does the captain perch?"
"Why, there!" replied Adam, pointing to a floor above the porte-
cochere which had one window looking on the street. "His apartments
are over the coachhouse."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: "What is it, Sadie?" Laura came into the hall.
"It's the florist, Miss Laura."
It was, indeed. There, just inside the door, stood a wide, shallow tray
full of pots of pink lilies. No other kind. Nothing but lilies--canna
lilies, big pink flowers, wide open, radiant, almost frighteningly alive on
bright crimson stems.
"O-oh, Sadie!" said Laura, and the sound was like a little moan. She
crouched down as if to warm herself at that blaze of lilies; she felt they
were in her fingers, on her lips, growing in her breast.
"It's some mistake," she said faintly. "Nobody ever ordered so many.
Sadie, go and find mother."
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