| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: He laughed. "Oh, don't compare a gentleman to a newspaper."
"Then keep your vocabulary clean of bargain-counter words. A while ago
the journalists had a furious run upon the adjective 'un-American.'
Anybody or anything that displeased them was 'un-American.' They ran it
into the ground, and in its place they have lately set up 'pessimist,'
which certainly has a threatening appearance. They don't know its
meaning, and in their mouths it merely signifies that what a man says
snakes them feel personally uncomfortable. The word has become a dusty
rag of slang. The arrested burglar very likely calls the policeman a
pessimist; and, speaking reverently and with no intention to shock you,
the scribes and Pharisees would undoubtedly have called Christ a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: We already know what strikes the imagination of crowds, and are
acquainted with the power and contagiousness of suggestions, of
those especially that are presented under the form of images.
However, as suggestions may proceed from very different sources,
the factors capable of acting on the minds of crowds may differ
considerably. It is necessary, then, to study them separately.
This is not a useless study. Crowds are somewhat like the sphinx
of ancient fable: it is necessary to arrive at a solution of the
problems offered by their psychology or to resign ourselves to
being devoured by them.
1. IMAGES, WORDS, AND FORMULAS
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: He dined once or twice every year at the Government
House--a many-windowed, arcaded palace upon a hill
laid out in roads and gardens. And lately he had been
taking about a duke in his Master-Attendant's steam-
launch to visit the harbor improvements. Before that
he had "most obligingly" gone out in person to pick
out a good berth for the ducal yacht. Afterwards he
had an invitation to lunch on board. The duchess her-
self lunched with them. A big woman with a red face.
Complexion quite sunburnt. He should think ruined.
Very gracious manners. They were going on to
End of the Tether |
