| 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: vestibule more visible. Johann turned up the light, and Horn, who
had visited the Professor several times and knew the situation of
the rooms, went at once to the heavy, carved and iron trimmed door
of the study. He attempted to open the door, but it resisted all
pressure. The heavy key was in the inner side of the big lock with
its medieval iron ornamentation. But the key was turned so that
the lower part of the lock was free, a round opening of unusual size.
Horn made sure of this by holding a lighted match to the door.
"You are right," he said to the valet, "the door is locked from the
inside. We'll have to go through the bedroom. Johann, bring me a
chisel or a hatchet. Muller, you stay here and open the door when
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: the room infinitely more nearly than the matter; and the result was
that I thought less, perhaps, of Lippo Lippi, or Lorenzo, or
Politian, than of the good Englishman who had written in that volume
what he knew of them, and taken so much pleasure in his solemn
polysyllables.
I was not left without society. My landlord had a very pretty little
daughter, whom we shall call Lizzie. If I had made any notes at the
time, I might be able to tell you something definite of her
appearance. But faces have a trick of growing more and more
spiritualised and abstract in the memory, until nothing remains of
them but a look, a haunting expression; just that secret quality in a
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: that Homer, the wisest and most divine of poets, was unaware of the
impossibility of knowing a thing badly: for it was no less a person than
he who said of Margites that 'he knew many things, but knew them all
badly.' The solution of the riddle is this, I imagine:--By 'badly' Homer
meant 'bad' and 'knew' stands for 'to know.' Put the words together;--the
metre will suffer, but the poet's meaning is clear;--'Margites knew all
these things, but it was bad for him to know them.' And, obviously, if it
was bad for him to know so many things, he must have been a good-for-
nothing, unless the argument has played us false.
ALCIBIADES: But I do not think that it has, Socrates: at least, if the
argument is fallacious, it would be difficult for me to find another which
|
