| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: twelve years before. Unaware of what was taking place in Germany,
they spoke of the play as having been 'dragged from obscurity.' The
Official Receiver in Bankruptcy and myself were, however, better
informed. And much pleasure has been derived from reading those
criticisms, all carefully preserved along with the list of receipts
which were simultaneously pouring in from the German performances.
To do the critics justice they never withdrew any of their printed
opinions, which were all trotted out again when the play was
produced privately for the second time in England by the Literary
Theatre Society in 1906. In the Speaker of July 14th, 1906,
however, some of the iterated misrepresentations of fact were
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: Entrusted to the hard stone, an inscription becomes obliterated;
entrusted to a Butterfly's wing, it is indestructible. 'Durand,'
therefore, by all means.
But why drag in 'Clotho'? Is it the whim of a nomenclator, at a
loss for words to denote the ever-swelling tide of beasts that
require cataloguing? Not entirely. A mythological name came to
his mind, one which sounded well and which, moreover, was not out
of place in designating a spinstress. The Clotho of antiquity is
the youngest of the three Fates; she holds the distaff whence our
destinies are spun, a distaff wound with plenty of rough flocks,
just a few shreds of silk and, very rarely, a thin strand of gold.
The Life of the Spider |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: CXXIX
And her fair face, fair bosom he bedews
With tears, tears of remorse, of ruth, of sorrow.
As the pale rose her color lost renews
With the fresh drops fallen from the silver morrow,
So she revives, and cheeks empurpled shows
Moist with their own tears and with tears they borrow;
Thrice looked she up, her eyes thrice closed she;
As who say, "Let me die, ere look on thee."
CXXX
And his strong arm, with weak and feeble hand
|
