| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: life, and there is no evolution except towards Individualism.
Where this tendency is not expressed, it is a case of artificially-
arrested growth, or of disease, or of death.
Individualism will also be unselfish and unaffected. It has been
pointed out that one of the results of the extraordinary tyranny of
authority is that words are absolutely distorted from their proper
and simple meaning, and are used to express the obverse of their
right signification. What is true about Art is true about Life. A
man is called affected, nowadays, if he dresses as he likes to
dress. But in doing that he is acting in a perfectly natural
manner. Affectation, in such matters, consists in dressing
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: She turns again, and smiles . . . He does not know
She smiles from long ago . . .
She turns to him and smiles . . . Sunlight above him
Roars like a vast invisible sea,
Gold is beaten before him, shrill bells of silver;
He is released of weight, his body is free,
He lifts his arms to swim,
Dark years like sinister tides coil under him . . .
The lazy sea-waves crumble along the beach
With a whirring sound like wind in bells,
He lies outstretched on the yellow wind-worn sands
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: might catch the trout for his supper beside a certain rock upon
its edge, and fall asleep hearing the stream on either side of
him.
Always for him the first signs that he had gained the true world
of the mountains began at the island. The first pine trees stood
upon it; the first white columbine grew in their shade; and it
seemed to him that he always met here the first of the true
mountain air--the coolness and the new fragrance. Below, there
were only the cottonwoods, and the knolls and steep foot-hills
with their sage-brush, and the great warm air of the plains; here
at this altitude came the definite change. Out of the lower
The Virginian |
