| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: big water-power station on the rapids of the Volkhov is
finished in so far as land construction goes, but we can
proceed no further until we have obtained the turbines,
which we hope to get from abroad. As you know, we are
basing our plans in general on the assumption that in course
of time we shall supply the whole of Russian industry with
electricity, of which we also hope to make great use in
agriculture. That, of course, will take a great number of
years."
[Nothing could have been much more artificial than the
industrial geography of old Russia. The caprice of history
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: liberality is necessary, otherwise he would not be followed by
soldiers. And of that which is neither yours nor your subjects' you
can be a ready giver, as were Cyrus, Caesar, and Alexander; because it
does not take away your reputation if you squander that of others, but
adds to it; it is only squandering your own that injures you.
And there is nothing wastes so rapidly as liberality, for even whilst
you exercise it you lose the power to do so, and so become either poor
or despised, or else, in avoiding poverty, rapacious and hated. And a
prince should guard himself, above all things, against being despised
and hated; and liberality leads you to both. Therefore it is wiser to
have a reputation for meanness which brings reproach without hatred,
The Prince |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: a prime dainty; and that, in his time, the body of a plump girl
of fifteen, who was crucified for an attempt to poison the
Emperor, was sold to his imperial majesty's prime minister of
state, and other great mandarins of the court in joints from the
gibbet, at four hundred crowns. Neither indeed can I deny, that
if the same use were made of several plump young girls in this
town, who without one single groat to their fortunes, cannot stir
abroad without a chair, and appear at a play-house and assemblies
in foreign fineries which they never will pay for; the kingdom
would not be the worse.
Some persons of a desponding spirit are in great concern about
A Modest Proposal |
