| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: his head sideways as he assiduously polished away with a napkin at
the gleaming wood. He had a look of watchfulness upon his
features.
Jimmie and his companion kept their eyes upon the bartender
and conversed loudly in tones of contempt.
"He's a dindy masher, ain't he, by Gawd?" laughed Jimmie.
"Oh, hell, yes," said the companion, sneering widely. "He's
great, he is. Git onto deh mug on deh blokie. Dat's enough to
make a feller turn hand-springs in 'is sleep."
The quiet stranger moved himself and his glass a trifle
further away and maintained an attitude of oblivion.
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: masonry, which may still be seen on some old plans of Paris, and which
preserved the piles of the landing-place by meeting the rush of water
and ice at the upper end of the Island. The constable had taken
advantage of this for the foundation of his house, so that there were
several steps up to his door.
Like all the houses of that date, this cottage was crowned by a peaked
roof, forming a gable-end to the front, or half a diamond. To the
great regret of historians, but two or three examples of such roofs
survive in Paris. A round opening gave light to a loft, where the
constable's wife dried the linen of the Chapter, for she had the honor
of washing for the Cathedral--which was certainly not a bad customer.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: the idea, very prevalent on the stage, that the Greeks and Romans
always went about bareheaded in the open air - a mistake the
Elizabethan managers did not fall into, for they gave hoods as well
as gowns to their Roman senators.
More dress rehearsals would also be of value in explaining to the
actors that there is a form of gesture and movement that is not
merely appropriate to each style of dress, but really conditioned
by it. The extravagant use of the arms in the eighteenth century,
for instance, was the necessary result of the large hoop, and the
solemn dignity of Burleigh owed as much to his ruff as to his
reason. Besides until an actor is at home in his dress, he is not
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