| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: read her last. It is quite as good as the novels Mudie sends us.'
Lord Arthur seized the letter from her hand. It ran as follows:-
THE DEANERY, CHICHESTER,
27TH MAY.
My Dearest Aunt,
Thank you so much for the flannel for the Dorcas Society, and also
for the gingham. I quite agree with you that it is nonsense their
wanting to wear pretty things, but everybody is so Radical and
irreligious nowadays, that it is difficult to make them see that
they should not try and dress like the upper classes. I am sure I
don't know what we are coming to. As papa has often said in his
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: 9. MR. LEDBETTER'S VACATION
My friend, Mr. Ledbetter, is a round-faced little man, whose natural
mildness of eye is gigantically exaggerated when you catch the beam
through his glasses, and whose deep, deliberate voice irritates
irritable people. A certain elaborate clearness of enunciation has
come with him to his present vicarage from his scholastic days, an
elaborate clearness of enunciation and a certain nervous determination
to be firm and correct upon all issues, important and unimportant
alike. He is a sacerdotalist and a chess player, and suspected by many
of the secret practice of the higher mathematics--creditable rather
than interesting things. His conversation is copious and given
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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: withdraw. Such a classification is to me as much a matter of fact
as the Dresden rising or the police proclamation; but I shall not
pretend that it is a matter of such fact as everybody's judgment
can grapple with. People who prefer grand opera to serious
music-drama naturally resent my placing a very grand opera below
a very serious music-drama. The ordinary lover of Shakespeare
would equally demur to my placing his popular catchpenny plays,
of which As You Like It is an avowed type, below true
Shakespearean plays like Measure for Measure. I cannot help that.
Popular dramas and operas may have overwhelming merits as
enchanting make-believes; but a poet's sincerest vision of the
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