| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: in this prayer; he will do as good work, no doubt, but never better:
the sublime is always equal to itself; but this hymn is one of the
things that will always be sublime. The only match for such a
conception might be found in the psalms of the great Marcello, a noble
Venetian, who was to music what Giotto was to painting. The majesty of
the phrase, unfolding itself with episodes of inexhaustible melody, is
comparable with the finest things ever invented by religious writers.
"How simple is the structure! Moses opens the attack in G minor,
ending in a cadenza in B flat which allows the chorus to come in,
/pianissimo/ at first, in B flat, returning by modulations to G minor.
This splendid treatment of the voices, recurring three times, ends in
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: affection.
I have described elsewhere the prowess of the Copris {25} watching
over cells that are not her handiwork and do not contain her
offspring. With a zeal which even the additional labour laid upon
her does not easily weary, she removes the mildew from the alien
dung-balls, which far exceed the regular nests in number; she
gently scrapes and polishes and repairs them; she listens to them
attentively and enquires by ear into each nursling's progress. Her
real collection could not receive greater care. Her own family or
another's: it is all one to her.
The Lycosa is equally indifferent. I take a hair-pencil and sweep
The Life of the Spider |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: upon my sleeve, "The chapel has been long considered as common
ground, my dear, and used for a pinfold, and what objection can
we have to the man for employing what is his own to his own
profit? Besides, I did speak to him, and he very readily and
civilly promised that if he found bones or monuments, they should
be carefully respected and reinstated; and what more could I ask?
So, the first stone they found bore the name of Margaret
Bothwell, 1585, and I have caused it to be laid carefully aside,
as I think it betokens death, and having served my namesake two
hundred years, it has just been cast up in time to do me the same
good turn. My house has been long put in order, as far as the
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