| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: attempt to interfere with the individualism of imaginative art
still lingers. In fact, it does more than linger; it is
aggressive, offensive, and brutalising.
In England, the arts that have escaped best are the arts in which
the public take no interest. Poetry is an instance of what I mean.
We have been able to have fine poetry in England because the public
do not read it, and consequently do not influence it. The public
like to insult poets because they are individual, but once they
have insulted them, they leave them alone. In the case of the
novel and the drama, arts in which the public do take an interest,
the result of the exercise of popular authority has been absolutely
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde: LORD WINDERMERE. [Standing C.] I sometimes wish you had. I
should have been spared then the misery, the anxiety, the annoyance
of the last six months. But rather than my wife should know - that
the mother whom she was taught to consider as dead, the mother whom
she has mourned as dead, is living - a divorced woman, going about
under an assumed name, a bad woman preying upon life, as I know you
now to be - rather than that, I was ready to supply you with money
to pay bill after bill, extravagance after extravagance, to risk
what occurred yesterday, the first quarrel I have ever had with my
wife. You don't understand what that means to me. How could you?
But I tell you that the only bitter words that ever came from those
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: efforts in the evening and I challenged Mary Cavendish to a
single at tennis.
About a quarter to seven, Mrs. Inglethorp called us that we
should be late as supper was early that night. We had rather a
scramble to get ready in time; and before the meal was over the
motor was waiting at the door.
The entertainment was a great success, Mrs. Inglethorp's
recitation receiving tremendous applause. There were also some
tableaux in which Cynthia took part. She did not return with us,
having been asked to a supper party, and to remain the night with
some friends who had been acting with her in the tableaux.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
