| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: you as another great phenomenon, because he has heard of your saying,
'The hat is the man.' That speech of yours enraptured him. Ah! Vital,
you have faith; you believe in something; you have enthusiasm for your
work."
Vital scarcely listened; he grew pale with pleasure.
"Rise, my wife! Monsieur is a man of science."
Madame Vital rose at her husband's gesture. Gazonal bowed to her.
"Shall I have the honor to cover your head?" said Vital, with joyful
obsequiousness.
"At the same price as mine," interposed Bixiou.
"Of course, of course; I ask no other fee than to be quoted by you,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: he will only know his fellow in art or wisdom, and no one else.
That is evident, he said.
But then what profit, Critias, I said, is there any longer in wisdom or
temperance which yet remains, if this is wisdom? If, indeed, as we were
supposing at first, the wise man had been able to distinguish what he knew
and did not know, and that he knew the one and did not know the other, and
to recognize a similar faculty of discernment in others, there would
certainly have been a great advantage in being wise; for then we should
never have made a mistake, but have passed through life the unerring guides
of ourselves and of those who are under us; and we should not have
attempted to do what we did not know, but we should have found out those
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mad King by Edgar Rice Burroughs: breast high against his horse. He leaped from the saddle
the instant that the girl was swinging into her own. Then
the fellow jumped the fence and caught her bridle.
She struck at him with her whip, lashing him across the
head and face, but he clung tightly, dragged hither and
thither by the frightened horse, until at last he managed to
reach the girl's arm and drag her to the ground.
Almost at the same instant a man, unkempt and dis-
heveled, sprang from behind a tree and with a single blow
stretched the trooper unconscious upon the ground.
VII
The Mad King |
