| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: whole life will be a prey to superstition. Whatever facilitates
our work is more than an omen; it is a cause of success. This is
one of those pleasing surprises which often happen to active
resolution. Many things difficult to design prove easy to
performance."
CHAPTER XIV - RASSELAS AND IMLAC RECEIVE AN UNEXPECTED VISIT.
THEY had now wrought their way to the middle, and solaced their
toil with the approach of liberty, when the Prince, coming down to
refresh himself with air, found his sister Nekayah standing at the
mouth of the cavity. He started, and stood confused, afraid to
tell his design, and yet hopeless to conceal it. A few moments
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: reach the verifiable one; and after all, the wrong road always leads
somewhere.
Frank Harris's play was written long before mine. I read it in
manuscript before the Shakespear Memorial National Theatre was mooted;
and if there is anything except the Fitton theory (which is Tyler's
property) in my play which is also in Mr Harris's it was I who annexed
it from him and not he from me. It does not matter anyhow, because
this play of mine is a brief trifle, and full of manifest
impossibilities at that; whilst Mr Harris's play is serious both in
size, intention, and quality. But there could not in the nature of
things be much resemblance, because Frank conceives Shakespear to have
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: vast quantity of stuff had been deposited with him in the shape of
pledges, and had been left on his hands in default of payment. I
noticed jewel-cases, with ciphers and armorial bearings stamped upon
them, and sets of fine table-linen, and weapons of price; but none of
the things were docketed. I opened a book which seemed to be
misplaced, and found a thousand-franc note in it. I promised myself
that I would go through everything thoroughly; I would try the
ceilings, and floors, and walls, and cornices to discover all the
gold, hoarded with such passionate greed by a Dutch miser worthy of a
Rembrandt's brush. In all the course of my professional career I have
never seen such impressive signs of the eccentricity of avarice.
Gobseck |
