| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: met with any marked success among the natives, this less deserving
class of enthusiastic disseminators of an all-possessing belief
might do well to attempt it. They would find there a very virgin
field of a most promisingly dead level. It is true, human
opposition would undoubtedly prevent their tilling it, but Nature,
at least, would not present quite such constitutional obstacles as
she wisely does with us.
The individual's mind is, as it were, an isolated bit of the race
mind. The same set of traits will be found in each. Mental
characteristics there are a sort of common property, of which a
certain undifferentiated portion is indiscriminately allotted to
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: spirit of blind folly[24] and cowardice, and in the hearts of the
citizens spreads a tangle of hatred and mutual hostility which, as I
often shudder to think, will some day cause some disaster to befall
the state greater than it can bear.[25]
[21] Or, "is far enough away from Athens."
[22] See below, III. xii. 5; "Pol. Ath." i. 13; "Rev." iv. 52.
[23] Or, "to deal despitefully with one another.
[24] Reading {ateria}. See L. Dindorf ad loc., Ox. ed. lxii. Al.
{apeiria}, a want of skill, or {ataxia}, disorderliness. Cf. "Pol.
Ath." i. 5.
[25] Possibly the author is thinking of the events of 406, 405 B.C.
The Memorabilia |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: for his passionate and wonderful sketch of Meyerbeer's opera had made
him turn a little pale.
"That nothing may be lacking to this composition," he went on, "the
great artist has generously added the only /buffo/ duet permissible
for a devil: that in which he tempts the unhappy troubadour. The
composer has set jocosity side by side with horror--a jocosity in
which he mocks at the only realism he had allowed himself amid the
sublime imaginings of his work--the pure calm love of Alice and
Raimbaut; and their life is overshadowed by the forecast of evil.
"None but a lofty soul can feel the noble style of these /buffo/ airs;
they have neither the superabundant frivolity of Italian music nor the
Gambara |
