| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini: comes on the stage (as he does sometimes
three or four times in a day) but he first
drinks the Brazil water, without which he
can do nothing at all, for all that comes
from him has a tincture of the red, and
it only varies and alters according to the
abundance of water which he takes, and
the strength of the white-wine vinegar, in
which all the glasses are washed.
CHAPTER TEN
DEFIERS OF POISONOUS REPTILES: THARDO;
Miracle Mongers and Their Methods |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: argument?
PHILEBUS: Yes, that is a question which Protarchus and I have been long
asking.
SOCRATES: Assuredly you have already arrived at the answer to the question
which, as you say, you have been so long asking?
PHILEBUS: How so?
SOCRATES: Did we not begin by enquiring into the comparative eligibility
of pleasure and wisdom?
PHILEBUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And we maintain that they are each of them one?
PHILEBUS: True.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: Only," he wondered, his eyes rising to her, "only, in the name of
all the benedictions, how?"
It took her but an instant to bend her face and kiss him, and
something in the manner of it, and in the way her hands clasped and
locked his head while he felt the cool charity and virtue of her
lips, something in all this beatitude somehow answered everything.
"And now I keep you," she said.
"Oh keep me, keep me!" he pleaded while her face still hung over
him: in response to which it dropped again and stayed close,
clingingly close. It was the seal of their situation - of which he
tasted the impress for a long blissful moment in silence. But he
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