| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: 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;
for unless you know this, you cannot possibly come to an understanding as
to whether it is a good or an evil. I am ready to assist you in the
enquiry to the utmost of my power: but first let him who affirms that
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft: the east, far beyond the city walls and the leagues of pasture
land, rose the gaunt grey sides of those topless and impassable
peaks across which hideous Leng was said to lie.
The captain
took Carter to the mighty temple, which is set with its walled
garden in a great round plaza whence the streets go as spokes
from a wheel's hub. The seven arched gates of that garden, each
having over it a carven face like those on the city's gates, are
always open, and the people roam reverently at will down the tiled
paths and through the little lanes lined with grotesque termini
and the shrines of modest gods. And there are fountains, pools,
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: this or that supply of raw material, and so prepared the way for
our second flotation, Domestic Utilities; "Do it," they reordered
it in the city. And then came the reconstruction of Tono-Bungay,
and then "Household services" and the Boom!
That sort of development is not to he told in detail in a novel.
I have, indeed, told much of it elsewhere. It is to be found set
out at length, painfully at length, in my uncle's examination and
mine in the bankruptcy proceedings, and in my own various
statements after his death. Some people know everything in that
story, some know it all too well, most do not want the details.
it is the story of a man of imagination among figures, and unless
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