| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: For a moment she said nothing, and then--
"You are more timid than you used to be!" she answered.
He could hardly have said what expression he had expected to find in her face;
his apprehension had, perhaps, not painted her obtrusively pale and haughty,
aggressively cold and stern; but it had figured something different from the
look he encountered. Miss Vivian was simply blushing--that was what Bernard
mainly perceived; he saw that her surprise had been extreme--complete.
Her blush was re-assuring; it contradicted the idea of impatient resentment,
and Bernard took some satisfaction in noting that it was prolonged.
"Yes, I am more timid than I used to be," he said.
In spite of her blush, she continued to look at him very directly;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: We were loaded when we reached the boat. But Ned Land did not
find his provisions sufficient. Fate, however, favoured us.
Just as we were pushing off, he perceived several trees,
from twenty-five to thirty feet high, a species of palm-tree.
At last, at five o'clock in the evening, loaded with our riches,
we quitted the shore, and half an hour after we hailed the Nautilus.
No one appeared on our arrival. The enormous iron-plated cylinder
seemed deserted. The provisions embarked, I descended to my chamber,
and after supper slept soundly.
The next day, 6th January, nothing new on board.
Not a sound inside, not a sign of life. The boat rested
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: according to the pitch,--quite regular when the combination is a true
chord, and indefinite when the sounds are dissonant,--I say that music
is an art conceived in the very bowels of nature.
"Music is subject to physical and mathematical laws. Physical laws are
but little known, mathematics are well understood; and it is since
their relations have been studied, that the harmony has been created
to which we owe the works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Rossini,
grand geniuses, whose music is undoubtedly nearer to perfection than
that of their precursors, though their genius, too, is unquestionable.
The old masters could sing, but they had not art and science at their
command,--a noble alliance which enables us to merge into one the
Gambara |
