| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: her head to and fro like a nurse, the big wings of her cap and the
wings of the bird flapped in unison. When clouds gathered on the
horizon and the thunder rumbled, Loulou would scream, perhaps because
he remembered the storms in his native forests. The dripping of the
rain would excite him to frenzy; he flapped around, struck the ceiling
with his wings, upset everything, and would finally fly into the
garden to play. Then he would come back into the room, light on one of
the andirons, and hop around in order to get dry.
One morning during the terrible winter of 1837, when she had put him
in front of the fire-place on account of the cold, she found him dead
in his cage, hanging to the wire bars with his head down. He had
A Simple Soul |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: honours from the State, he may not at least look forward to the
delights of popularity? Praise, you will tell me, is a savoury
dish. And in so far as you may mean the countenance of other
artists you would put your finger on one of the most essential and
enduring pleasures of the career of art. But in so far as you
should have an eye to the commendations of the public or the notice
of the newspapers, be sure you would but be cherishing a dream. It
is true that in certain esoteric journals the author (for instance)
is duly criticised, and that he is often praised a great deal more
than he deserves, sometimes for qualities which he prided himself
on eschewing, and sometimes by ladies and gentlemen who have denied
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: pavement and stopped before a dusty shop, above which the
lettering had faded, where the red bricks of two hundred years
ago had grimed to black; where the windows had gathered to
themselves the dust of winters innumerable. I saw what I
required; but I think it was five minutes before I had steadied
myself and could walk in and ask for it in a cool voice and with
a calm face. I think there must even then have been a tremor in
my words, for the old man who came out of the back parlour, and
fumbled slowly amongst his goods, looked oddly at me as he tied
the parcel. I paid what he asked, and stood leaning by the
counter, with a strange reluctance to take up my goods and go.
The Great God Pan |
