| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: the desire for beauty. Do you remember Pater's phrase about
Leonardo da Vinci, 'curiosity and the desire of beauty'?"
It was the desire of beauty that made her a poet; her "nerves of
delight" were always quivering at the contact of beauty. To
those who knew her in England, all the life of the tiny figure
seemed to concentrate itself in the eyes; they turned towards
beauty as the sunflower turns towards the sun, opening wider and
wider until one saw nothing but the eyes.
She was dressed always in clinging dresses of Eastern silk, and
as she was so small, and her long black hair hung straight down
her back, you might have taken her for a child. She spoke
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: answerable to your deserts?" The young man replied that he was the
musician and songster of the night before. "Of a truth," said Don
Quixote, "your worship has a most excellent voice; but what you sang
did not seem to me very much to the purpose; for what have
Garcilasso's stanzas to do with the death of this lady?"
"Don't be surprised at that," returned the musician; "for with the
callow poets of our day the way is for every one to write as he
pleases and pilfer where he chooses, whether it be germane to the
matter or not, and now-a-days there is no piece of silliness they
can sing or write that is not set down to poetic licence."
Don Quixote was about to reply, but was prevented by the duke and
Don Quixote |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: forced to break into a run to keep up with him. Although my pride would
not suffer me to complain, since as a matter of principle I would never
admit to a Kafir that he was my master at anything, glad enough was I
when, towards evening, Saduko sat himself down on a stone at the top of
a hill and said:
"Behold the Black Kloof, Macumazahn," which were almost the first words
he had uttered since we started.
Truly the spot was well named, for there, cut out by water from the
heart of a mountain in some primeval age, lay one of the most gloomy
places that ever I had beheld. It was a vast cleft in which granite
boulders were piled up fantastically, perched one upon another in great
Child of Storm |
