| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: before the capricious elegance of Parisian novelties.
The house in which the events of this history occurred stands at about
the middle of the rue de Paris, and has been known at Douai for more
than two centuries as the House of Claes. The Van Claes were formerly
one of the great families of craftsmen to whom, in various lines of
production, the Netherlands owed a commercial supremacy which it has
never lost. For a long period of time the Claes lived at Ghent, and
were, from generation to generation, the syndics of the powerful Guild
of Weavers. When the great city revolted under Charles V., who tried
to suppress its privileges, the head of the Claes family was so deeply
compromised in the rebellion that, foreseeing a catastrophe and bound
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: traveling-bag must be agony. Let me support the valise until we get
back a few yards. Then you must lie down until we can get it cut
off."
"Will it have to be cut off?" I asked as calmly as possible. There
were red-hot stabs of agony clear to my neck, but we were moving
slowly away from the track.
"Yes," she replied, with dumfounding coolness. "If I had a knife I
could do it myself. You might sit here and lean against this fence."
By that time my returning faculties had realized that she was going
to cut off the satchel, not the arm. The dizziness was leaving and
I was gradually becoming myself.
The Man in Lower Ten |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: the aid of such men. Galileo, Lavoisier, Darwin, and Pasteur
were such revolutionaries.
Although it is not necessary that a nation should possess any
large number of such spirits, it is very necessary that it should
possess some. Without them men would still be living in caves.
The revolutionary audacity which results in discoveries implies
very rare faculties. It necessitates notably an independence of
mind sufficient to escape from the influence of current opinions,
and a judgement that can grasp, under superficial analogies, the
hidden realities. This form of revolutionary spirit is creative,
while that examined above is destructive.
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