| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Case of the Golden Bullet by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: this way?" both parties knowing all the while that it is a farce,
and that the department waits helpless until this humble little
man saves its honour by solving some problem before which its
intricate machinery has stood dazed and puzzled.
This call of the trail is something that is stronger than anything
else in Muller's mentality, and now and then it brings him into
conflict with the department, ... or with his own better nature.
Sometimes his unerring instinct discovers secrets in high places,
secrets which the Police Department is bidden to hush up and leave
untouched. Muller is then taken off the case, and left idle for
a while if he persists in his opinion as to the true facts. And
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Rescue by Joseph Conrad: the brig, and the only white man on board of her besides the
captain. He felt himself immeasurably superior to the Malay
seamen whom he had to handle, and treated them with lofty
toleration, notwithstanding his opinion that at a pinch those
chaps would be found emphatically "not there."
As soon as his mind came back from his home leave, he detached
himself from the rail and, walking forward, stood by the break of
the poop, looking along the port side of the main deck. Lingard
on his own side stopped in his walk and also gazed absentmindedly
before him. In the waist of the brig, in the narrow spars that
were lashed on each side of the hatchway, he could see a group of
The Rescue |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: weak. There is no power over language, or beauty of style; and there is a
certain abruptness and agroikia in the conversation, which is very un-
Platonic. The best passage is probably that about the poets:--the remark
that the poet, who is of a reserved disposition, is uncommonly difficult to
understand, and the ridiculous interpretation of Homer, are entirely in the
spirit of Plato (compare Protag; Ion; Apol.). The characters are ill-
drawn. Socrates assumes the 'superior person' and preaches too much, while
Alcibiades is stupid and heavy-in-hand. There are traces of Stoic
influence in the general tone and phraseology of the Dialogue (compare opos
melesei tis...kaka: oti pas aphron mainetai): and the writer seems to
have been acquainted with the 'Laws' of Plato (compare Laws). An incident
|
