| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Poems of William Blake by William Blake: But he that loves the lowly, pours his oil upon my head
And kisses me, and binds his nuptial bands around my breast.
And says; Thou mother of my children, I have loved thee
And I have given thee a crown that none can take away.
But how this is sweet maid, I know not, and I cannot know
I ponder, and I cannot ponder; yet I live and love.
The daughter of beauty wip'd her pitying tears with her white veil,
And said, Alas! I knew not this, and therefore did I weep:
That God would love a Worm I knew, and punish the evil foot
That wilful bruis'd its helpless form: but that he cherish'd it
With milk and oil I never knew, and therefore did I weep,
 Poems of William Blake |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: the Avenue no longer fashionable for residence, it looked upon
the swelling tide of business with an expression of complacency
and half-disdain.
The house was not beautiful. There was nothing in its straight
front of
chocolate-colored stone, its heavy cornices, its broad, staring
windows of
plate glass, its carved and bronze-bedecked mahogany doors at the
top of the wide stoop, to charm the eye or fascinate the
imagination.
But it was eminently respectable, and in its way imposing.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: trace the origin. The passage '/Gloire a la Providence/' is too much
like a bit of Handel; the chorus of knights is closely related to the
Scotch air in /La Dame Blanche/; in short, if this opera is a success,
it is because the music is borrowed from everybody's--so it ought to
be popular.
"I will say good-bye to you, my dear friend. I have had some ideas
seething in my brain since the morning that only wait to soar up to
God on the wings of song, but I wished to see you. Good-bye; I must
ask forgiveness of the Muse. We shall meet at dinner to-night--but no
wine; at any rate, none for me. I am firmly resolved--"
"I give him up!" cried Andrea, flushing red.
 Gambara |