| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: a circle, like a tonsure, from her hair, and the lamp was moved
nearer. Raymond took a small glittering instrument from a
little case, and Clarke turned away shudderingly. When he
looked again the doctor was binding up the wound he had made.
"She will awake in five minutes." Raymond was still
perfectly cool. "There is nothing more to be done; we can only
wait."
The minutes passed slowly; they could hear a slow,
heavy, ticking. There was an old clock in the passage. Clarke
felt sick and faint; his knees shook beneath him, he could
hardly stand.
The Great God Pan |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: An hour after, I sent for my purchase. On the first page was
written in ink, in an elegant hand, an inscription on the part of
the giver. It consisted of these words:
Manon to Marguerite.
Humility.
It was signed Armand Duval.
What was the meaning of the word Humility? Was Manon to recognise
in Marguerite, in the opinion of M. Armand Duval, her superior in
vice or in affection? The second interpretation seemed the more
probable, for the first would have been an impertinent piece of
plain speaking which Marguerite, whatever her opinion of herself,
Camille |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: medicine; and tiring, in like manner, is a flattery which takes the form of
gymnastic, and is knavish, false, ignoble, illiberal, working deceitfully
by the help of lines, and colours, and enamels, and garments, and making
men affect a spurious beauty to the neglect of the true beauty which is
given by gymnastic.
I would rather not be tedious, and therefore I will only say, after the
manner of the geometricians (for I think that by this time you will be able
to follow)
as tiring : gymnastic :: cookery : medicine;
or rather,
as tiring : gymnastic :: sophistry : legislation;
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