| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: imitation, and too definite a realisation of the Ideal, which would
be too purely intellectual. It is through its very incompleteness
that art becomes complete in beauty, and so addresses itself, not
to the faculty of recognition nor to the faculty of reason, but to
the aesthetic sense alone, which, while accepting both reason and
recognition as stages of apprehension, subordinates them both to a
pure synthetic impression of the work of art as a whole, and,
taking whatever alien emotional elements the work may possess, uses
their very complexity as a means by which a richer unity may be
added to the ultimate impression itself. You see, then, how it is
that the aesthetic critic rejects these obvious modes of art that
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others.
When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the
parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on
his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to
front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound
broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory
heard his words.
"Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time
sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a
reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the
last day of thy life."
Men of Iron |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: souls sometimes grows to be a brazen wall. There are no venial
crimes in love! If you have the very spirit of that noble
sentiment, you must feel all its pangs, and we must be unceasingly
careful not to fret each other by some heedless word.
"No doubt, my beloved treasure, if there is any fault, it is in
me. I cannot pride myself in the belief that I understand a
woman's heart, in all the expansion of its tenderness, all the
grace of its devotedness; but I will always endeavor to appreciate
the value of what you vouchsafe to show me of the secrets of
yours.
"Speak to me! Answer me soon! The melancholy into which we are
Louis Lambert |
