Author: Joseph Hocking
Year: 2015
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Excerpt from The Scarlet Woman: A Novel
The three great working forces of life are ambition, necessity, and love. Lacking any one of these, man is wanting in motive power; lacking all of them, he generally becomes drift, swept hither and thither by the waves of life. Norman Lancaster possessed none of them. Certainly he was not ambitious, as the word is usually understood. He desired neither fame nor position. He had no need to put forth effort in order to obtain life's necessities. Fortunately, or unfortunately for him, he possessed more money than he needed. As for love, his friends declared that he was a stranger to this the greatest passion of which the human heart is capable, and which makes or mars the life of the world. This may explain why, when he returned to London, after some months' absence, he seemed so bored.
"I think I have tried everything now," he said, as, with a sigh, he threw himself into an armchair and cut the end of a cigar. He smoked silently a few minutes, then went on thinking.
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