| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: unbearably contradictory extreme. The "play of constitutional powers,"
as Guizot styled the clapper-clawings between the legislative and the
executive powers, plays permanent "vabanque" in the Constitution of
1848. On the one side, 750 representatives of the people, elected and
qualified for re-election by universal suffrage, who constitute an
uncontrollable, indissoluble, indivisible National Assembly, a National
Assembly that enjoys legislative omnipotence, that decides in the last
instance over war, peace and commercial treaties, that alone has the
power to grant amnesties, and that, through its perpetuity, continually
maintains the foreground on the stage; on the other, a President, clad
with all the attributes of royalty, with the right to appoint and remove
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart: and put on the clothing of a Belgian peasant. Trust Henri then for being
a lout, a simple fellow who spoke only Flemish - but could hear in many
tongues. Watch him standing at crossroads and marveling at big guns that
rumble by.
At first Henri had wished, having learned of an attack, to be among those
who repelled it. Then one day his King had sent for him to come to that
little viilage which was now his capital city.
He had been sent in alone and had found the King at the table, writing.
Henri bowed and waited. They were not unlike, these two men, only Henri
was younger and lighter, and where the King's eyes were gray Henri's were
blue. Such a queer setting for a king it was - a tawdry summer home,
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: can get to and fro with the greatest rapidity. This explains the
miraculous ease with which information can be conveyed, during the
sitting of the Courts, to the officials and the presidents of the
Assize Courts. And by the time Monsieur Camusot had reached the top of
the stairs leading to his chambers, Bibi-Lupin was there too, having
come by the Salle des Pas-Perdus.
"What zeal!" said Camusot, with a smile.
"Ah, well, you see if it is HE," replied the man, "you will see great
fun in the prison-yard if by chance there are any old stagers here."
"Why?"
"Trompe-la-Mort sneaked their chips, and I know that they have vowed
|
