| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: Revolution:--
``It has been said that the generation which from 1789 to 1799
did such great and terrible things was a generation of giants,
or, to put it more plainly, that it was a generation more
distinguished than that which preceded it or that which followed.
This is a retrospective illusion. The citizens who formed the
municipal and Jacobin or nationalist groups by which the
Revolution was effected do not seem to have been superior, either
in enlightenment or in talents, to the Frenchmen of the time of
Louis XV. or of Louis Philippe. Were those exceptionally gifted
whose names history has retained because they appeared on the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: his boyhood upwards, thirsted for glory, and beyond all contemporary
names won what he desired; who, being gifted with a nature most
emulous of honour, remained from the moment he was king unconquered;
who attained the fullest term of mortal life and died without
offence[4] committed, whether as concerning those at whose head he
marched, or as towards those others against whom he fought in war.
[3] See Symonds' "Greek Poets," ch. v.
[4] As to the word {anamartetos} so translated, see Breitenbach, Exc.
ad x. 4 of his edition.
XI
It only remains for me, under the form of headings,[1] to review the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: large and deep, by a conflux of all the rivers on this side the
county, forms the haven; and the town facing to the west also, and
open to the river, makes the finest quay in England, if not in
Europe, not inferior even to that of Marseilles itself.
The ships ride here so close, and, as it were, keeping up one
another, with their headfasts on shore, that for half a mile
together they go across the stream with their bowsprits over the
land, their bows, or heads touching the very wharf; so that one may
walk from ship to ship as on a floating bridge, all along by the
shore-side. The quay reaching from the drawbridge almost to the
south gate, is so spacious and wide, that in some places it is near
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