| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: newspapers only reflect opinion. As for statesmen, far from
directing opinion, their only endeavour is to follow it. They
have a dread of opinion, which amounts at times to terror, and
causes them to adopt an utterly unstable line of conduct.
The opinion of crowds tends, then, more and more to become the
supreme guiding principle in politics. It goes so far to-day as
to force on alliances, as has been seen recently in the case of
the Franco-Russian alliance, which is solely the outcome of a
popular movement. A curious symptom of the present time is to
observe popes, kings, and emperors consent to be interviewed as a
means of submitting their views on a given subject to the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: nerves. I'm sure he hadn't caught a glimpse of anything but some
splendid idea."
Mrs. Mulville brightly concurred. "And perhaps even of her
beautiful listening face."
"Perhaps even! And what was it all about?"
"His talk? It was apropos of her engagement, which I had told him
about: the idea of marriage, the philosophy, the poetry, the
sublimity of it." It was impossible wholly to restrain one's mirth
at this, and some rude ripple that I emitted again caused my
companion to admonish me. "It sounds a little stale, but you know
his freshness."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon: not otherwise have been had, but by him, advan-
tage be not taken of the note, but the party left to
his other means; and in some sort recompensed,
for his discovery. To be ignorant of the value of a
suit, is simplicity; as well as to be ignorant of the
right thereof, is want of conscience. Secrecy in
suits, is a great mean of obtaining; for voicing
them to be in forwardness, may discourage some
kind of suitors, but doth quicken and awake others.
But timing of the suit is the principal. Timing, I
say, not only in respect of the person that should
Essays of Francis Bacon |
