| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: Then keep the tomb of Helice,
Thine olive-woods, thy vine-clad wold,
And what remains to us of thee?
Though many an unsung elegy
Sleeps in the reeds our rivers hold,
O goat-foot God of Arcady!
Ah, what remains to us of thee?
II.
Ah, leave the hills of Arcady,
Thy satyrs and their wanton play,
This modern world hath need of thee.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: when the officer had rejoined his companions and the four friends
found themselves alone. "Shame, shame, for four Musketeers to
allow an unfortunate fellow who cried for help to be arrested is
their midst! And a gentleman to hobnob with a bailiff!"
"Porthos," said Aramis, "Athos has already told you that you are
a simpleton, and I am quite of his opinion. D'Artagnan, you are
a great man; and when you occupy Monsieur de Treville's place, I
will come and ask your influence to secure me an abbey."
"Well, I am in a maze," said Porthos; "do YOU approve of what
D'Artagnan has done?"
"PARBLEU! Indeed I do," said Athos; "I not only approve of what
The Three Musketeers |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: for ignoring their best work and admiring their splendid commonplaces;
but they produced the commonplaces all the same, and made them sound
magnificent by mere brute faculty for their art. When Shakespear was
forced to write popular plays to save his theatre from ruin, he did it
mutinously, calling the plays "As _You_ Like It," and "Much Ado About
Nothing." All the same, he did it so well that to this day these two
genial vulgarities are the main Shakespearian stock-in-trade of our
theatres. Later on Burbage's power and popularity as an actor enabled
Shakespear to free himself from the tyranny of the box office, and to
express himself more freely in plays consisting largely of monologue
to be spoken by a great actor from whom the public would stand a good
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