| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: with brandy for the madness of revolution, with wits enough, in fine,
to take fire at a captious word, which signifies to it always: Gold
and Pleasure! If we comprise in it all those who hold out their hands
for an alms, for lawful wages, or the five francs that are granted to
every kind of Parisian prostitution, in short, for all the money well
or ill earned, this people numbers three hundred thousand individuals.
Were it not for the /cabarets/, would not the Government be overturned
every Tuesday? Happily, by Tuesday, this people is glutted, sleeps off
its pleasure, is penniless, and returns to its labor, to dry bread,
stimulated by a need of material procreation, which has become a habit
to it. None the less, this people has its phenomenal virtues, its
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: Marius by the sea-side through Liguria. The Cimbri were a
considerable time in doing their part. But the Teutones and Ambrones
with all expedition passing over the interjacent country, soon came
in sight, in numbers beyond belief, of a terrible aspect, and
uttering strange cries and shouts. Taking up a great part of the
plain with their camp, they challenged Marius to battle; he seemed to
take no notice of them, but kept his soldiers within their
fortifications, and sharply reprehended those that were too forward
and eager to show their courage, and who, out of passion, would needs
be fighting, calling them traitors to their country, and telling them
they were not now to think of the glory of triumphs and trophies, but
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: English history except Lady Jane Grey's, which was only nine
days. She is never officially recognized as a monarch of
England, but if you or I should ever occupy a throne we should
like to have proper notice taken of it; and it would be only fair
and right, too, particularly if we gained nothing by it and lost
our lives besides.
Richard III.; two WHITE squares. (Fig. 22.)
That is not a very good lion, but Richard was not a very
good king. You would think that this lion has two heads, but
that is not so; one is only a shadow. There would be shadows for
the rest of him, but there was not light enough to go round, it
What is Man? |
