| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: of the kill-joys of modern life. That ancient traveller is sure to
beat you in the long run, and as long as you are trying to rival
him, he will make your life a burden. But if you will only
acknowledge his superiority and profess that you do not approve of
racing after all, he will settle down quietly beside you and jog
along like the most companionable of creatures. That is a pleasant
pilgrimage in which the journey itself is part of the destination.
As soon as one learns to regard the horse-yacht as a sort of moving
house, it appears admirable. There is no dust or smoke, no rumble
of wheels, or shriek of whistles. You are gliding along steadily
through an ever-green world; skirting the silent hills; passing
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: this contact that was needed to centralise the numerous local
struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle
between classes. But every class struggle is a political
struggle. And that union, to attain which the burghers of the
Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries,
the modern proletarians, thanks to railways, achieve in a few
years.
This organisation of the proletarians into a class, and
consequently into a political party, is continually being upset
again by the competition between the workers themselves. But it
ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier. It compels
The Communist Manifesto |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: [15] Lit. "good but fearful (i.e. he makes one fear), he will some day
do some desperate mischief."
VII
Now when he had heard these reasonings, Simonides replied: O Hiero,
there is a potent force, it would appear, the name of which is honour,
so attractive that human beings strain to grasp it,[1] and in the
effort they will undergo all pains, endure all perils. It would
further seem that even you, you tyrants, in spite of all that sea of
trouble which a tyranny involves, rush headlong in pursuit of it. You
must be honoured. All the world shall be your ministers; they shall
carry out your every injunction with unhestitating zeal.[2] You shall
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