| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth: eternity. The Church of the living God ought not--and to say nothing
about religion, the people who have any humanity ought not, to rest
without doing something desperate to rescue this half of a million who
are in the eddying maelstrom. We purpose, therefore, the taking away
of the people from the temptation which they cannot resist. We would
to God that the temptation could be taken away from them, that every
house licensed to send forth the black streams of bitter death were
closed, and closed for ever. But this will not be, we fear, for the
present at least.
While in one case drunkenness may be resolved into a habit, in another
it must be accounted a disease. What is wanted in the one case,
In Darkest England and The Way Out |
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 collective mind, momentarily formed, represents a very
special kind of aggregate. Its chief peculiarity is that it is
entirely dominated by unconscious elements, and is subject to a
peculiar collective logic.
Among the other characteristics of crowds, we must note their
infinite credulity and exaggerated sensibility, their short-
sightedness, and their incapacity to respond to the influences of
reason. Affirmation, contagion, repetition, and prestige
constitute almost the only means of persuading them. Reality and
experience have no effect upon them. The multitude will admit
anything; nothing is impossible in the eyes of the crowd.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: imitate black marble with yellow veins, turns upon itself like those
you see in cafes leading from the ground-floor to the entresol. The
balustrade, of walnut with brass ornaments and dangerously slight, was
pointed out to us as one of the seven wonders of the world. The cellar
stairs run under it. On the other side of the corridor is the dining-
room, which communicates by folding-doors with a salon of equal size,
the windows of which look on the garden."
"Dear me, is there no ante-chamber?" asked Madame Auffray.
"The corridor, full of draughts, answers for an ante-chamber," replied
Madame Tiphaine. "Our friends have had, they assured us, the eminently
national, liberal, constitutional, and patriotic feeling to use none
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