| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: the genial Epicurean henceforth write like Horace, let the epic
narrator imitate the supreme elegance of Virgil,--that was the
conspicuous idea, the conspicuous error, of seventeenth-century
criticism. It overlooked the differences between one age and
another. Conversely, when it brought Roman patricians and Greek
oligarchs on to the stage, it made them behave like French
courtiers or Castilian grandees or English peers. When it had to
deal with ancient heroes, it clothed them in the garb and imputed
to them the sentiments of knights-errant. Then came the
revolutionary criticism of the eighteenth century, which assumed
that everything old was wrong, while everything new was right. It
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: grand removal of white paint and rouge, the reassumption amid clouds
of rice powder of ordinary attire. The strange animal scent came in
whiffs of redoubled intensity through the lines of banging doors.
On the third story Muffat abandoned himself to the feeling of
intoxication which was overpowering him. For the chorus girls'
dressing room was there, and you saw a crowd of twenty women and a
wild display of soaps and flasks of lavender water. The place
resembled the common room in a slum lodging house. As he passed by
he heard fierce sounds of washing behind a closed door and a perfect
storm raging in a washhand basin. And as he was mounting up to the
topmost story of all, curiosity led him to risk one more little peep
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: heard Umbelazi's voice, and felt Saduko's grip loosen at my throat, and
sat up.
"Dog," said the Prince, "where is your assegai? And as he spoke he
threw it from him into the river beneath, for he had picked it up while
we struggled, but, as I noted, retained his own. "Now, dog, why do I
not kill you, as would have been easy but now? I will tell you.
Because I will not mix the blood of a traitor with my own. See!" He
set the haft of his broad spear upon the rock and bent forward over the
blade. "You and your witch-wife have brought me to nothing, O Saduko.
My blood, and the blood of all who clung to me, is on your head. Your
name shall stink for ever in the nostrils of all true men, and I whom
Child of Storm |
