| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde: honest. You are not.
MRS. ERLYNNE. Why do you say that?
LORD WINDERMERE. You made me get you an invitation to my wife's
ball.
MRS. ERLYNNE. For my daughter's ball - yes.
LORD WINDERMERE. You came, and within an hour of your leaving the
house you are found in a man's rooms - you are disgraced before
every one. [Goes up stage C.]
MRS. ERLYNNE. Yes.
LORD WINDERMERE. [Turning round on her.] Therefore I have a right
to look upon you as what you are - a worthless, vicious woman. I
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: tester hung with flowered chintz. A small table stood by the bed, on
which I saw an "Imitation of Christ," which, by the way, I bought for
my wife, as well as the lamp. There were also a deep armchair for her
confidential maid, and two small chairs. There was no fire. That was
all the furniture, not enough to fill ten lines in an inventory.
" 'My dear sir, if you had seen, as I then saw, that vast room,
papered and hung with brown, you would have felt yourself transported
into a scene of a romance. It was icy, nay more, funereal,' and he
lifted his hand with a theatrical gesture and paused.
" 'By dint of seeking, as I approached the bed, at last I saw Madame
de Merret, under the glimmer of the lamp, which fell on the pillows.
La Grande Breteche |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: their offices; and one-third feel kind of restless but won't admit it; and
one-third are miserable and know it. They hate the whole peppy, boosting,
go-ahead game, and they're bored by their wives and think their families are
fools--at least when they come to forty or forty-five they're bored--and they
hate business, and they'd go--Why do you suppose there's so many 'mysterious'
suicides? Why do you suppose so many Substantial Citizens jumped right into
the war? Think it was all patriotism?"
Babbitt snorted, "What do you expect? Think we were sent into the world to
have a soft time and--what is it?--'float on flowery beds of ease'? Think Man
was just made to be happy?"
"Why not? Though I've never discovered anybody that knew what the deuce Man
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