| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: with all the iniquities of the diplomacy and counter-diplomacy of two
kings? I am an agent between Ferdinand VII. and Louis XVIII., two--
kings who owe their crowns to profound--er--combinations, let us say.
I believe in God, but I have a still greater belief in our Order, and
our Order has no belief save in temporal power. In order to strengthen
and consolidate the temporal power, our Order upholds the Catholic
Apostolic and Roman Church, which is to say, the doctrines which
dispose the world at large to obedience. We are the Templars of modern
times; we have a doctrine of our own. Like the Templars, we have been
dispersed, and for the same reasons; we are almost a match for the
world. If you will enlist as a soldier, I will be your captain. Obey
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: Let go the sickle, and the last dresser now
Sings of his finished rows; but still the ground
Must vexed be, the dust be stirred, and heaven
Still set thee trembling for the ripened grapes.
Not so with olives; small husbandry need they,
Nor look for sickle bowed or biting rake,
When once they have gripped the soil, and borne the breeze.
Earth of herself, with hooked fang laid bare,
Yields moisture for the plants, and heavy fruit,
The ploughshare aiding; therewithal thou'lt rear
The olive's fatness well-beloved of Peace.
Georgics |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: got his right arm on his left shoulder, and his left arm on his
right shoulder, and this shows us the back of his hands in both
instances. It makes him left-handed all around, which is a thing
which has never happened before, except perhaps in a museum.
That is the way with art, when it is not acquired but born to
you: you start in to make some simple little thing, not
suspecting that your genius is beginning to work and swell and
strain in secret, and all of a sudden there is a convulsion and
you fetch out something astonishing. This is called inspiration.
It is an accident; you never know when it is coming. I might
have tried as much as a year to think of such a strange thing as
What is Man? |
