| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: never "saw himself," as actors say, in Romeo or Orsino or Antonio. In
Mr Harris's own play Shakespear is presented with the most pathetic
tenderness. He is tragic, bitter, pitiable, wretched and broken among
a robust crowd of Jonsons and Elizabeths; but to me he is not
Shakespear because I miss the Shakespearian irony and the
Shakespearian gaiety. Take these away and Shakespear is no longer
Shakespear: all the bite, the impetus, the strength, the grim delight
in his own power of looking terrible facts in the face with a chuckle,
is gone; and you have nothing left but that most depressing of all
things: a victim. Now who can think of Shakespear as a man with a
grievance? Even in that most thoroughgoing and inspired of all
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: conviviality. The restaurant was no great place, but boasted a
considerable cellar and a long printed list of vintages. This I
was perusing with the double zest of a man who is fond of
wine and a lover of beautiful names, when my eye fell (near the
end of the card) on that not very famous or familiar brand,
Roussillon. I remembered it was a wine I had never tasted,
ordered a bottle, found it excellent, and when I had discussed
the contents, called (according to my habit) for a final pint. It
appears they did not keep Roussillon in half-bottles. "All
right," said I. "Another bottle." The tables at this eating-house
are close together; and the next thing I can remember, I was in
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: in such vivid illumination that one could read the notices thereon
at a distance, as though in broad daylight, while the dense night of
the boulevard beyond was dotted with lights above the vague outline
of an ever-moving crowd. Many men did not enter the theater at once
but stayed outside to talk while finishing their cigars under the
rays of the line of gas jets, which shed a sallow pallor on their
faces and silhouetted their short black shadows on the asphalt.
Mignon, a very tall, very broad fellow, with the square-shaped head
of a strong man at a fair, was forcing a passage through the midst
of the groups and dragging on his arm the banker Steiner, an
exceedingly small man with a corporation already in evidence and a
|
