| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft: and Carter laid him gently on a couch of inlaid ebony and gathered
his long beard decorously on his chest. As he turned to go, he
observed that no suppressed fluttering followed him, and wondered
why the Zoogs had become so lax in their curious pursuit. Then
he noticed all the sleek complacent cats of Ulthar licking their
chops with unusual gusto, and recalled the spitting and caterwauling
he had faintly heard, in lower parts of the temple while absorbed
in the old priest's conversation. He recalled, too, the evilly
hungry way in which an especially impudent young Zoog had regarded
a small black kitten in the cobbled street outside. And because
he loved nothing on earth more than small black kittens, he stooped
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: anyone could ever have taken Meyerbeer's influence seriously.
Those who remember how his reputation stood half a century ago,
and who realize what a nothoroughfare the path he opened proved
to be, even to himself, know how inevitable and how impersonal
Wagner's attack was.
Wagner was the literary musician par excellence. He could not,
like Mozart and Beethoven, produce decorative tone structures
independently of any dramatic or poetic subject matter, because,
that craft being no longer necessary for his purpose, he did not
cultivate it. As Shakespeare, compared with Tennyson, appears to
have an exclusively dramatic talent, so exactly does Wagner
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Koran: you who is sick or has a hurt upon his head, then the redemption is by
fasting or by alms or by an offering. But when ye are safe again, then
let him who would enjoy the visitation until the pilgrimage (bring)
what is easiest as a gift. And he who cannot find (anything to bring),
then let him fast three days on the pilgrimage and seven when ye
return; these make ten days complete. That is, for him whose family
are not present in the Sacred Mosque; and fear God and know that God
is keen to punish.
The pilgrimage is (in) well-known months: whosoever then makes it
incumbent on himself (let him have neither) commerce with women, nor
fornication, nor a quarrel on the pilgrimage; and whatsoever of good
The Koran |
