"Every art does go
back to three or four notes. In composition it is the same thing.
Nothing new--nothing new since a thousand years. By George, that is
true! We invent nothing, nothing!"
"Take the eternal triangle," said Quinny hurriedly, not to surrender his
advantage, while Rankin and De Gollyer in a bored way continued to gaze
dreamily at a vagrant star or two. "Two men and a woman, or two women
and a man. Obviously it should be classified as the first of the great
original parent themes. Its variations extend into the thousands. By the
way, Rankin, excellent opportunity, eh, for some of our modern,
painstaking, unemployed jackasses to analyze and classify."
"Quite right," said Rankin without perceiving the satirical note. "Now
there's De Maupassant's Fort comma la Mort--quite the most interesting
variation--shows the turn a genius can give. There the triangle is the
man of middle age, the mother he has loved in his youth and the daughter
he comes to love. It forms, you might say, the head of a whole
subdivision of modern continental literature.
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