| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: and the Merchant appear later; also the 'crowds of people', and
Death by Water is executed in Part IV. The Man with Three Staves
(an authentic member of the Tarot pack) I associate, quite arbitrarily,
with the Fisher King himself.
60. Cf. Baudelaire:
Fourmillante cité, cité pleine de rêves,
Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant.
63. Cf. INFERNO, iii. 55-7.
si lunga tratta
di gente, ch'io non avrei mai creduto
che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta.
The Waste Land |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: those mistresses of fashion and good taste from whom young men take
finishing lessons in knowledge of life, and learn the usages of good
society, which in Europe forms, as it were, one family.
The intoxicating dream of social success lasted but a short time.
Balthazar left Paris, weary of a hollow existence which suited neither
his ardent soul nor his loving heart. Domestic life, so calm, so
tender, which the very name of Flanders recalled to him, seemed far
more fitted to his character and to the aspirations of his heart. No
gilded Parisian salon had effaced from his mind the harmonies of the
panelled parlor and the little garden where his happy childhood had
slipped away. A man must needs be without a home to remain in Paris,--
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: modesty,
Her words doth show her wit incomparable,
All her perfections challenge sovereignty;
One way or other she is for a king,
And she shall be my love, or else my queen.--
Say that King Edward take thee for his queen?
LADY GREY.
'T is better said than done, my gracious lord;
I am a subject fit to jest withal,
But far unfit to be a sovereign.
KING EDWARD.
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