| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: "We've GOT to follow him," exclaimed Marcus as McTeague
came up. "There's no water within seventy miles of here."
Then began an interminable pursuit. Mile after mile, under
the terrible heat of the desert sun, the two men followed
the mule, racked with a thirst that grew fiercer every hour.
A dozen times they could almost touch the canteen of water,
and as often the distraught animal shied away and fled
before them. At length Marcus cried:
"It's no use, we can't catch him, and we're killing
ourselves with thirst. We got to take our chances." He drew
his revolver from its holster, cocked it, and crept forward.
McTeague |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: Life and Nature, and elevating them into ideals. Life and Nature
may sometimes be used as part of Art's rough material, but before
they are of any real service to art they must be translated into
artistic conventions. The moment Art surrenders its imaginative
medium it surrenders everything. As a method Realism is a complete
failure, and the two things that every artist should avoid are
modernity of form and modernity of subject-matter. To us, who live
in the nineteenth century, any century is a suitable subject for
art except our own. The only beautiful things are the things that
do not concern us. It is, to have the pleasure of quoting myself,
exactly because Hecuba is nothing to us that her sorrows are so
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Brother of Daphne by Dornford Yates: "I know, but I'm so busy just now that it's done for me. My
sister is ashamed of me every evening at eight- fifteen.
Matinees on Wednesdays at two. Could you come one day?"
She laughed in spite of herself. Then:
"And now where is this Grange place?"
"Next but one on the right, but it looks rotten in the evening."
"It's only just five."
"Besides, they had measles there last May- stacks of them."
"Stacks of what?"
"Measles. One of them escaped one day and was brought back by
the village corner-boy. He said he'd have kept it, only he
The Brother of Daphne |
