| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: * * *
Besides these specimens of poetry about butterflies, I have one queer
example to offer of Japanese prose literature on the same topic. The
original, of which I have attempted only a free translation, can be found
in the curious old book Mushi-Isame ("Insect-Admonitions"); and it assumes
the form of a discourse to a butterfly. But it is really a didactic
allegory,-- suggesting the moral significance of a social rise and fall:--
"Now, under the sun of spring, the winds are gentle, and flowers pinkly
bloom, and grasses are soft, and the hearts of people are glad. Butterflies
everywhere flutter joyously: so many persons now compose Chinese verses and
Japanese verses about butterflies.
Kwaidan |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: thing to be expected! Honest!--why, of course, they arn't.
Why should they be? What upon earth is to make them so?"
"Why don't you instruct?"
"Instruct! O, fiddlestick! What instructing do you think
I should do? I look like it! As to Marie, she has spirit
enough, to be sure, to kill off a whole plantation, if I'd let her
manage; but she wouldn't get the cheatery out of them."
"Are there no honest ones?"
"Well, now and then one, whom Nature makes so impracticably
simple, truthful and faithful, that the worst possible influence
can't destroy it. But, you see, from the mother's breast the
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: best swordsman in Liddesdale; and young Armstrong, burning for
chivalrous distinction, accepted the challenge.
The heart of the disabled old man swelled with joy when he heard
that the challenge was passed and accepted, and the meeting fixed
at a neutral spot, used as the place of rencontre upon such
occasions, and which he himself had distinguished by numerous
victories. He exulted so much in the conquest which he
anticipated, that, to nerve his son to still bolder exertions, he
conferred upon him, as champion of his clan and province, the
celebrated weapon which he had hitherto retained in his own
custody.
|
