| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: over-wrought yourself. Are you not too much shut up? You already
look paler. It would be better for Mr. Casaubon to have a secretary;
he could easily get a man who would do half his work for him.
It would save him more effectually, and you need only help him in
lighter ways."
"How can you think of that?" said Dorothea, in a tone of
earnest remonstrance. "I should have no happiness if I did not
help him in his work. What could I do? There is no good to be
done in Lowick. The only thing I desire is to help him more.
And he objects to a secretary: please not to mention that again."
"Certainly not, now I know your feeling. But I have heard both
Middlemarch |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: the massacres of Nantes were repeated in many other towns.
Fouche slew more than 2,000 persons at Lyons, and so many were
killed at Toulon that the population fell from 29,000 to 7,000 in
a few months.
We must say in defence of Carrier, Freron, Fouche and all
these sinister persons, that they were incessantly stimulated by
the Committee of Public Safety. Carrier gave proof of this
during his trial.
``I admit,'' said he (Moniteur, December 24, 1794), ``that 150
or 200 prisoners were shot every day, but it was by order of the
commission. I informed the Convention that the brigands were
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: the most eager to pursue a noble policy and to repudiate a base one,
are frequently in hostile relation to one another. As I reason on
these things my heart fails me, and the question, how friends are to
be acquired, fills me with despondency. The bad, as I see, cannot be
friends with one another. For how can such people, the ungrateful, or
reckless, or covetous, or faithless, or incontinent, adhere together
as friends? Without hesitation I set down the bad as born to be foes
not friends, and as bearing the birthmark of internecine hate. But
then again, as you suggest, no more can these same people harmonise in
friendship with the good. For how should they who do evil be friends
with those who hate all evil-doing? And if, last of all, they that
The Memorabilia |
