| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: whole it is a question whether the benevolence of mankind does more
good or harm. Great good, no doubt, philanthropy does, but then it
also does great evil. It augments so much vice, it multiplies so much
suffering, it brings to life such great populations to suffer and to
be vicious, that it is open to argument whether it be or be not an
evil to the world, and this is entirely because excellent people fancy
they can do much by rapid action, and that they will most benefit the
world when they most relieve their own feelings; that as soon as an
evil is seen, `something' ought to be done to stay and prevent it.
One may incline to hope that the balance of good over evil is in favor
of benevolence; one can hardly bear to think that it is not so; but
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: O thou septentrional and widowed site,
Because thou art deprived of seeing these!
When from regarding them I had withdrawn,
Turning a little to the other pole,
There where the Wain had disappeared already,
I saw beside me an old man alone,
Worthy of so much reverence in his look,
That more owes not to father any son.
A long beard and with white hair intermingled
He wore, in semblance like unto the tresses,
Of which a double list fell on his breast.
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: ruthlessness than I have shown in my notes and my thoughts in
regard to my future son-in-law Gnekker. Accusations of
irrationality, of evil intentions, and, indeed, of every sort of
crime, form an habitual ornament of serious articles. And that,
as young medical men are fond of saying in their monographs, is
the _ultima ratio!_ Such ways must infallibly have an effect on
the morals of the younger generation of writers, and so I am not
at all surprised that in the new works with which our literature
has been enriched during the last ten or fifteen years the heroes
drink too much vodka and the heroines are not over-chaste.
I read French books, and I look out of the window which is open;
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