| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: common people. But Shakespear was not satisfied with this. What is
the use of being Shakespear if you are not allowed to express any
notions but those of Autolycus? Shakespear did not see the world as
Autolycus did: he saw it, if not exactly as Ibsen did (for it was not
quite the same world), at least with much of Ibsen's power of
penetrating its illusions and idolatries, and with all Swift's horror
of its cruelty and uncleanliness.
Now it happens to some men with these powers that they are forced to
impose their fullest exercise on the world because they cannot produce
popular work. Take Wagner and Ibsen for instance! Their earlier
works are no doubt much cheaper than their later ones; still, they
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: the dog of Egypt, I should greatly prefer a real friend to all the gold of
Darius, or even to Darius himself: I am such a lover of friends as that.
And when I see you and Lysis, at your early age, so easily possessed of
this treasure, and so soon, he of you, and you of him, I am amazed and
delighted, seeing that I myself, although I am now advanced in years, am so
far from having made a similar acquisition, that I do not even know in what
way a friend is acquired. But I want to ask you a question about this, for
you have experience: tell me then, when one loves another, is the lover or
the beloved the friend; or may either be the friend?
Either may, I should think, be the friend of either.
Do you mean, I said, that if only one of them loves the other, they are
Lysis |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: She shuddered, and then without removing her eyes from the setting
sun, she said, "How is it that, young as you are, you know these
things? Were you once a woman?"
"Ah!" I replied, "my childhood was like a long illness--"
"I hear Madeleine coughing," she cried, leaving me abruptly.
The countess showed no displeasure at my constant visits, and for two
reasons. In the first place she was pure as a child, and her thoughts
wandered into no forbidden regions; in the next I amused the count and
made a sop for that lion without claws or mane. I found an excuse for
my visits which seemed plausible to every one. Monsieur de Mortsauf
proposed to teach me backgammon, and I accepted; as I did so the
The Lily of the Valley |
