| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Love Songs by Sara Teasdale: But we talked of a thousand things together,
The past was buried too deep to fear.
I met the other, whose love was given
With never a kiss and scarcely a word --
Oh, it was then the terror took me
Of words unuttered that breathed and stirred.
Oh, love that lives its life with laughter
Or love that lives its life with tears
Can die -- but love that is never spoken
Goes like a ghost through the winding years. . . .
I went back to the clanging city,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his
father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be
a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can
get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who
sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist.
"This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I
projected. My first opera was called /The Martyrs/, and I intend to
write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this
trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs,
Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of
the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we
Gambara |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: Torrid summers and freezing winters, labour and drudgery and
ignorance, were the portion of their girlhood; a short wooing, a
hasty, loveless marriage, unlimited maternity, thankless sons,
premature age and ugliness, were the dower of their womanhood. But
what matter? Tonight there was hot liquor in the glass and hot
blood in the heart; tonight they danced.
Tonight Eric Hermannson had renewed his youth. He was no
longer the big, silent Norwegian who had sat at Margaret's feet and
looked hopelessly into her eyes. Tonight he was a man, with a
man's rights and a man's power. Tonight he was Siegfried indeed.
His hair was yellow as the heavy wheat in the ripe of summer, and
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
