| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: ambitious as Napoleon, as poetic as Lord Byron, and yet a power
unknown, invisible, will compel you to bury your poetry within your
soul and turn your projects into dreams.
The illustrious Gaudissart was fated to encounter here in Vouvray one
of those indigenous jesters whose jests are not intolerable solely
because they have reached the perfection of the mocking art. Right or
wrong, the Tourangians are fond of inheriting from their parents.
Consequently the doctrines of Saint-Simon were especially hated and
villified among them. In Touraine hatred and villification take the
form of superb disdain and witty maliciousness worthy of the land of
good stories and practical jokes,--a spirit which, alas! is yielding,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: Line 42 Od'] Oed' -- Editor.
'Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
'Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!
'You! hypocrite lecteur! -- mon semblable, -- mon frère!'
II. A GAME OF CHESS
THE Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out 80
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
The Waste Land |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs: citizens were drinking at little tables in front of the bar. A
couple of card games were in progress, and through the open
rear doorway Billy saw a little gathering encircling a cock
fight.
In none of these things was Billy interested. What he had
wished in entering the saloon was merely an excuse to place
himself upon the opposite side of the street from the bank that
he might inspect the front from the outside without arousing
suspicion.
Having purchased and drunk a bottle of poor beer, the
temperature of which had probably never been below eighty
The Mucker |
