| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: Lohengrin in his middle age, and The Ring in his later years, may
I again remind them that The Ring was the result of a political
convulsion which occurred when Wagner was only thirty-six, and
that the poem was completed when he was forty, with thirty more
years of work before him? It is as much a first essay in
political philosophy as Die Feen is a first essay in romantic
opera. The attempt to recover its spirit twenty years later, when
the music of Night Falls On The Gods was added, was an attempt to
revive the barricades of Dresden in the Temple of the Grail. Only
those who have never had any political enthusiasms to survive can
believe that such an attempt could succeed. G. B. S.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: he finished his loaf of bread to the last crumb, and then went to
sleep with a full stomach and a contented mind.
The next morning off they started again bright and early, and
before long they came to just such another field of stones as
they left behind them the day before.
"Come, master," said Babo, "let us each take a stone with us. We
may need something more to eat before the day is over."
"No," said Simon Agricola; "we will need no stones to-day."
But Babo had no notion to go hungry the second time, so he hunted
around till he found a stone as big as his head. All day he
carried it, first under one arm, and then under the other. The
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: masters and ladies to ride bicycles?'
" 'What is there improper about it?' I said. 'Let them ride and
enjoy themselves.'
" 'But how can that be?' he cried, amazed at my calm. 'What are
you saying?'
"And he was so shocked that he was unwilling to go on, and
returned home.
"Next day he was continually twitching and nervously rubbing his
hands, and it was evident from his face that he was unwell. And
he left before his work was over, for the first time in his life.
And he ate no dinner. Towards evening he wrapped himself up
|
