| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: evidence if given by the honest man at once strikes them as perfectly true.
And probably the audience have something of the same feeling about yourself
and Prodicus; they think him a Sophist and a braggart, and regard you as a
gentleman of courtesy and worth. For they do not pay attention to the
argument so much as to the character of the speaker.
But truly, Socrates, said Erasistratus, though you may be joking, Critias
does seem to me to be saying something which is of weight.
SOCRATES: I am in profound earnest, I assure you. But why, as you have
begun your argument so prettily, do you not go on with the rest? There is
still something lacking, now you have agreed that (wealth) is a good to
some and an evil to others. It remains to enquire what constitutes wealth;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: "Such, my child, are the events of thy mother's life to this
dreadful moment--Should she ever escape from the fangs of her
enemies, she will add the secrets of her prison-house--and--"
Some lines were here crossed out, and the memoirs broke off
abruptly with the names of Jemima and Darnford.
APPENDIX
ADVERTISEMENT*
THE performance, with a fragment of which the reader has now been
presented, was designed to consist of three parts. The preceding
sheets were considered as constituting one of those parts. Those
persons who in the perusal of the chapters, already written and in
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: "At the instant when the gentleman turned the key to enter his wife's
room, he fancied he heard the door shut of the closet of which I have
spoken; but when he went in, Madame de Merret was alone, standing in
front of the fireplace. The unsuspecting husband fancied that Rosalie
was in the cupboard; nevertheless, a doubt, ringing in his ears like a
peal of bells, put him on his guard; he looked at his wife, and read
in her eyes an indescribably anxious and haunted expression.
" 'You are very late,' said she.--Her voice, usually so clear and
sweet, struck him as being slightly husky.
"Monsieur de Merret made no reply, for at this moment Rosalie came in.
This was like a thunder-clap. He walked up and down the room, going
La Grande Breteche |
