| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: breezeless day there, it is only necessary to ignore the
evolutional protests of a few blue asters or a few composite
flowers of the coryopsis sort, which contrive to display their
rare flashes of color through the general waving of cat-heads,
blood-weeds, wild cane, and marsh grasses. For, at a hasty
glance, the general appearance of this marsh verdure is vague
enough, as it ranges away towards the sand, to convey the idea of
amphibious vegetation,--a primitive flora as yet undecided
whether to retain marine habits and forms, or to assume
terrestrial ones;--and the occasional inspection of surprising
shapes might strengthen this fancy. Queer flat-lying and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: dawn, and there was a delicious sense of
repose and peace in the deep pervading
calm and silence of the woods. Not a leaf stirred; not a
sound obtruded upon great Nature's meditation. Bead-
ed dewdrops stood upon the leaves and grasses. A
white layer of ashes covered the fire, and a thin blue
breath of smoke rose straight into the air. Joe and
Huck still slept.
Now, far away in the woods a bird called; another
answered; presently the hammering of a woodpecker
was heard. Gradually the cool dim gray of the morn-
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: pervades the score in all directions. In the case of the gold the
association is established by the very salient way in which the
orchestra breaks into the pretty theme in the first act of The
Rhine Gold at the moment when the sunrays strike down through the
water and light up the glittering treasure, "hitherto invisible.
The reference of the strange little theme of the wishing cap is
equally manifest from the first, since the spectator's attention
is wholly taken up with the Tarnhelm and its magic when the theme
is first pointedly uttered by the orchestra. The sword theme is
introduced at the end of The Rhine Gold to express Wotan's hero
inspiration; and I have already mentioned that Wagner, unable,
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