| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: difficult to find in Rouen men impassioned enough to place Paquita in
a suitable setting of luxury and splendor. This horrible realism,
emphasized by gloomy poetic feeling, had inspired some passages such
as modern poetry is too free with, rather too like the flayed
anatomical figures known to artists as /ecorches/. Then, by a highly
philosophical revulsion, after describing the house of ill-fame where
the Andalusian ended her days, the writer came back to the ballad at
the opening:
Paquita now is faded, shrunk, and old,
But she it was who sang:
"If you but knew the fragrant plain,
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: Desires this ring; appoints him an encounter;
In fine, delivers me to fill the time,
Herself most chastely absent; after this,
To marry her, I'll add three thousand crowns
To what is pass'd already.
WIDOW.
I have yielded:
Instruct my daughter how she shall persever,
That time and place, with this deceit so lawful,
May prove coherent. Every night he comes
With musics of all sorts, and songs compos'd
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini: he does things which become more difficult
by his disadvantageous situation;
attempting and often doing, what he hears
other strong men have done, without making
use of the same advantages.
About six years ago he pulled against
a horse, sitting on the ground with his feet
against two stumps driven into the
ground, but without the advantage
represented by the first figure, Plate 19; for
the horse pulling against him drew upwards
Miracle Mongers and Their Methods |
