| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Love and Friendship by Jane Austen: young Ladies who are Heiresses must not throw ourselves away upon
Men who have no fortune at all."
"My dear Miss Halton said she, I am as much convinced of that as
you can be, and I do assure you that I should be the last person
to encourage your marrying anyone who had not some pretensions to
expect a fortune with you. Mr Musgrove is so far from being
poor that he has an estate of several hundreds an year which is
capable of great Improvement, and an excellent House, though at
Present it is not quite in repair."
"If that is the case replied I, I have nothing more to say
against him, and if as you say he is an informed young Man and
Love and Friendship |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: 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
I could trust.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Again--perhaps the nightly visitor. It seemed more likely some
one who suspected a secret at the lodge. Was Louise under
surveillance?
Who had passed Louise on the circular staircase?
Could it have been Thomas? The key to the east entry made this a
possibility. But why was he there, if it were indeed he?
Who had made the hole in the trunk-room wall?
It was not vandalism. It had been done quietly, and with
deliberate purpose. If I had only known how to read the purpose
of that gaping aperture what I might have saved in anxiety and
mental strain!
The Circular Staircase |
