| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: is a law of political science as well established as the law of
gravitation, our rulers are never taught political science: on the
contrary, they are taught in school that the master tolerates nothing
that is disagreeable to him; that ruling is simply being master; and
that the master's method is the method of violent punishment. And our
citizens, all school taught, are walking in the same darkness. As I
write these lines the Home Secretary is explaining that a man who has
been imprisoned for blasphemy must not be released because his remarks
were painful to the feelings of his pious fellow townsmen. Now it
happens that this very Home Secretary has driven many thousands of his
fellow citizens almost beside themselves by the crudity of his notions
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that
Sarrasine shuddered.
" 'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's
madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that
sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried,
weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the
music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have
no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the
same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.'
"The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which
contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: a responsible official under the Communists. Now in the
event of a violent change, the Communists would be outlaws
with a price on every head, and those who have worked with
them, being Russians, know their fellow countrymen well
enough to be pretty well convinced that the mere fact that
they are without cards of the membership of the Communist
Party, would not save them in the orgy of slaughter that
would follow any such collapse.
People may think that I underestimate the importance of, the
Extraordinary Commission. I am perfectly aware that
without this police force with its spies, its prisons and its
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