| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: Grandiosoo spettacolo Cinematografico: QUO VADIS?--Inaugurazione della
Chiesa Russa--In coda al Direttissimo--Vedute di Firenze con
gran movimeno--America: Transporto tronchi giganteschi--I ladri
in casa del Diavolo--Scene comiche. CINEMATOGRAFO--Via Brunelleschi
n. 4.--Programma straordinario, DON CHISCIOTTE--Prezzi populari.
The whole of that is intelligible to me--and sane and rational, too--
except the remark about the Inauguration of a Russian Chinese.
That one oversizes my hand. Give me five cards.
This is a four-page paper; and as it is set in long primer leaded
and has a page of advertisements, there is no room for the crimes,
disasters, and general sweepings of the outside world--thanks be!
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: This Volkónsky built all the buildings of
Yásnaya Polyána. He was a model squire,
intelligent and proud, and enjoyed the great respect of all the
neighborhood.
On the ground floor, under the drawing-room, next to the
entrance-hall, my father built his study. He had a semi-circular
niche made in the wall, and stood a marble bust of his favorite
dead brother Nikolái in it. This bust was made abroad
from a death-mask, and my father told us that it was very like,
because it was done by a good sculptor, according to his own
directions.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: handle his chords, and through what masterly modulations he raises the
image of terror to come to the dominant C. I can hear all hell in it!
"The curtain rises. What do I see? The only scene to which we gave the
epithet infernal: an orgy of knights in Sicily. In that chorus in F
every human passion is unchained in a bacchanalian /allegro/. Every
thread by which the devil holds us is pulled. Yes, that is the sort of
glee that comes over men when they dance on the edge of a precipice;
they make themselves giddy. What /go/ there is in that chorus!
"Against that chorus--the reality of life--the simple life of every-
day virtue stands out in the air, in G minor, sung by Raimbaut. For a
moment it refreshed my spirit to hear the simple fellow,
Gambara |
