| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Red Seal by Natalie Sumner Lincoln: attention on the business letters which Sylvester placed before him;
instead, his thoughts reverted to the scene in Rochester's and
Turnbull's apartment the night before, the elusive visitor he had
found there on his arrival, his interview with Detective Ferguson,
and above all the handkerchief, saturated with amyl nitrite, and
bearing the small embroidered letter "B" - the initial, insignificant
in size, but fraught with dire possibilities if, as Ferguson hinted,
Turnbull had been put to death by an over-dose of the drug. "B "
- Barbara; Barbara - "B" - his mind rang the changes; pshaw! other
names than Barbara began with "B."
"Shall I transcribe your notes, Mr. Kent?" asked Sylvester, and Kent
The Red Seal |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: said, I can't recollect his name), in my conduct--never!--Well, well;
these good priests and your Mirabeaus and Vergniauds and the rest of
them, are mere stammering beginners compared with these orators of
mine.
" 'Often it is some girl in love, some gray-headed merchant on the
verge of bankruptcy, some mother with a son's wrong-doing to conceal,
some starving artist, some great man whose influence is on the wane,
and, for lack of money, is like to lose the fruit of all his labors--
the power of their pleading has made me shudder. Sublime actors such
as these play for me, for an audience of one, and they cannot deceive
me. I can look into their inmost thoughts, and read them as God reads
Gobseck |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: length. A really great and original writer would have no object in
fathering his works on Plato; and to the forger or imitator, the 'literary
hack' of Alexandria and Athens, the Gods did not grant originality or
genius. Further, in attempting to balance the evidence for and against a
Platonic dialogue, we must not forget that the form of the Platonic writing
was common to several of his contemporaries. Aeschines, Euclid, Phaedo,
Antisthenes, and in the next generation Aristotle, are all said to have
composed dialogues; and mistakes of names are very likely to have occurred.
Greek literature in the third century before Christ was almost as
voluminous as our own, and without the safeguards of regular publication,
or printing, or binding, or even of distinct titles. An unknown writing
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