| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: or you saw good canary thrown away. But you are welcome to laugh
if it so please you. None shall laugh in my company, though it
be at my expense, but I will have my share of the merriment.
The world is a stage, and life is a farce, and he that laughs
most has most profit of the performance. The worst thing is good
enough to be laughed at, though it be good for nothing else;
and the best thing, though it be good for something else,
is good for nothing better."
And he struck up a song in praise of laughing and quaffing, without further
adverting to Marian's insinuated accusation; being, perhaps, of opinion,
that it was a subject on which the least said would be the soonest mended.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: LXII
Withal she smiled and she blushed withal,
Her blush, her smilings, smiles her blushing graced:
Over her face her amber tresses fall,
Whereunder Love himself in ambush placed:
At last she warbled forth a treble small,
And with sweet looks her sweet songs interlaced;
"Oh happy men I that have the grace," quoth she,
"This bliss, this heaven, this paradise to see.
LXIII
"This is the place wherein you may assuage
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: and the show; there's company in the inn to-night that will pay to see
that and the cleverness of the ape." "So be it by all means," said the
man with the patch; "I'll lower the price, and he well satisfied if
I only pay my expenses; and now I'll go back and hurry on the cart
with the ape and the show;" and with this he went out of the inn.
Don Quixote at once asked the landlord what this Master Pedro was,
and what was the show and what was the ape he had with him; which
the landlord replied, "This is a famous puppet-showman, who for some
time past has been going about this Mancha de Aragon, exhibiting a
show of the release of Melisendra by the famous Don Gaiferos, one of
the best and best-represented stories that have been seen in this part
Don Quixote |
