| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: AMOUR-PROPRE has a somewhat marked preponderance in her
character; celebrity has a tendency to foster this sentiment, and
in her it should be rather repressed--she rather needs keeping
down than bringing forward; and then I think, monsieur--it
appears to me that ambition, LITERARY ambition especially, is not
a feeling to be cherished in the mind of a woman: would not
Mdlle. Henri be much safer and happier if taught to believe that
in the quiet discharge of social duties consists her real
vocation, than if stimulated to aspire after applause and
publicity? She may never marry; scanty as are her resources,
obscure as are her connections, uncertain as is her health (for I
The Professor |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: In withered husks of some dead memory.
Poem: Pan - Double Villanelle
I
O goat-foot God of Arcady!
This modern world is grey and old,
And what remains to us of thee?
No more the shepherd lads in glee
Throw apples at thy wattled fold,
O goat-foot God of Arcady!
Nor through the laurels can one see
Thy soft brown limbs, thy beard of gold,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: again, a dead body. Your creation is incomplete. You have breathed
only a part of your soul into the well-beloved work. The torch of
Prometheus went out in your hands over and over again; there are
several parts of your painting on which the celestial flame never
shone."
"But why is it so, my dear master?" said Porbus humbly, while the
young man could hardly restrain a strong desire to strike the critic.
"Ah! that is the question," said the little old man. "You are floating
between two systems,--between drawing and color, between the patient
phlegm and honest stiffness of the old Dutch masters and the dazzling
warmth and abounding joy of the Italians. You have tried to follow, at
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