| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: than by absurd ones, they are so thoroughly wedded to their own
opinion that no argument or evidence can wean them from it.
"I remember saying one day to one of these obstinate fellows,
'Tell me, do you not recollect that a few years ago, there were
three tragedies acted in Spain, written by a famous poet of these
kingdoms, which were such that they filled all who heard them with
admiration, delight, and interest, the ignorant as well as the wise,
the masses as well as the higher orders, and brought in more money
to the performers, these three alone, than thirty of the best that
have been since produced?'
"'No doubt,' replied the actor in question, 'you mean the
Don Quixote |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: that insulting indifference which, like a spring frost, destroys the
germs of flattering hopes. Beaux, wits, and fops, men whose sentiments
are fed by sucking their canes, those of a great name, or a great
fame, those of the highest or the lowest rank in her own world, they
all blanch before her. She has conquered the right to converse as long
and as often as she chooses with the men who seem to her agreeable,
without being entered on the tablets of gossip. Certain coquettish
women are capable of following a plan of this kind for seven years in
order to gratify their fancies later; but to suppose any such
reservations in the Marquise de Listomere would be to calumniate her.
I have had the happiness of knowing this phoenix. She talks well; I
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hermione's Little Group of Serious Thinkers by Don Marquis: It is no effort for the rain to fall.
Why is it no effort?
Because it falls spontaneously!
O Spontaneity! Spontaneity!
Rain is genius,
Genius is rain!
Fall, fall, rain!
Fothy is going to get them printed -- he knows a
lot of vers libre publishers -- if Papa will only put
up the money. And one nice thing about poor dear
Papa is that he always will put it up.
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