| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: When however, it came to a real conflict, when the people mounted the
barricades, when the National Guard stood passive, when the army offered
no serious resistance, and the kingdom ran away, then the republic
seemed self-understood. Each party interpreted it in its own sense.
Won, arms in hand, by the proletariat, they put upon it the stamp of
their own class, and proclaimed the social republic. Thus the general
purpose of modern revolutions was indicated, a purpose, however, that
stood in most singular contradiction to every thing that, with the
material at hand, with the stage of enlightenment that the masses had
reached, and under existing circumstances and conditions, could be
immediately used. On the other hand, the claims of all the other
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: about which I felt a difficulty before. For the charm will do more,
Charmides, than only cure the headache. I dare say that you have heard
eminent physicians say to a patient who comes to them with bad eyes, that
they cannot cure his eyes by themselves, but that if his eyes are to be
cured, his head must be treated; and then again they say that to think of
curing the head alone, and not the rest of the body also, is the height of
folly. And arguing in this way they apply their methods to the whole body,
and try to treat and heal the whole and the part together. Did you ever
observe that this is what they say?
Yes, he said.
And they are right, and you would agree with them?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: instead of earning a miserable eight thousand a year, I'll bring back
twenty thousand at least from each trip."
"Unlace me, Gaudissart, and do it right; don't tighten me."
"Yes, truly," said the traveller, complacently; "I shall become a
shareholder in the newspapers, like Finot, one of my friends, the son
of a hatter, who now has thirty thousand francs income, and is going
to make himself a peer of France. When one thinks of that little
Popinot,--ah, mon Dieu! I forgot to tell you that Monsieur Popinot was
named minister of commerce yesterday. Why shouldn't I be ambitious
too? Ha! ha! I could easily pick up the jargon of those fellows who
talk in the chamber, and bluster with the rest of them. Now, listen to
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