| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Koran: what they had got the upper-hand over with utter destruction.'
It may be that thy Lord will have mercy on you;- if ye return we
will return, and we have made hell a prison for the misbelievers.
Verily, this Koran guides to the straightest path, and gives the
glad tidings to the believers who do aright that for them is a great
hire; and that for those who believe not in the hereafter, we have
prepared a mighty woe.
Man prays for evil as he prays for good; and man was ever hasty.
We made the night and the day two signs; and we blot out the sign of
the night and make the sign of the day visible, that ye may seek after
plenty from your Lord, and that ye may number the years and the
The Koran |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: resemblances, however, are very superficial, pertaining not to
the musical but to the dramatic treatment of situations which are
generically similar in so far, and only in so far, as they
represent conversational passages between an apostle or prophet
and an ignorant multitude, whether amazed or hostile, under the
sway of violent excitement. As regards the musical elaboration of
these terse and striking alternations of chorus and recitative,
its originality can be questioned only after we have decided to
refer all originality on such matters to Bach, or, indeed, even
behind him, into the Middle Ages.
After the preaching of Peter, and the sweet contralto aria, "As
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: this fountain and spray of life, the fatal sterility of the male plunged
itself, like a beak of brass, barren and bare. He wanted sympathy. He
was a failure, he said. Mrs Ramsay flashed her needles. Mr Ramsay
repeated, never taking his eyes from her face, that he was a failure.
She blew the words back at him. "Charles Tansley..." she said. But he
must have more than that. It was sympathy he wanted, to be assured of his
genius, first of all, and then to be taken within the circle of life,
warmed and soothed, to have his senses restored to him, his barrenness
made furtile, and all the rooms of the house made full of life--the
drawing-room; behind the drawing-room the kitchen; above the kitchen the
bedrooms; and beyond them the nurseries; they must be furnished, they must
To the Lighthouse |
