| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mountains by Stewart Edward White: hide. Then, if you want to, you can stop and establish
in your mind a definite proportion between the
amount thus exposed, the area remaining unexposed,
and the muscular fatigue of these dozen and
a half of mighty pushes. The proportion will be
wrong. You have left out of account the fact that you
are going to get almighty sick of the job; that your
arms and upper back are going to ache shrewdly
before you are done; and that as you go on it is going
to be increasingly difficult to hold down the edges
firmly enough to offer the required resistance to your
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: extricate themselves. Men are guided in their conduct above all
by their beliefs and by the customs that are the consequence of
those beliefs. These beliefs and customs regulate the smallest
acts of our existence, and the most independent spirit cannot
escape their influence. The tyranny exercised unconsciously on
men's minds is the only real tyranny, because it cannot be fought
against. Tiberius, Ghengis Khan, and Napoleon were assuredly
redoubtable tyrants, but from the depth of their graves Moses,
Buddha, Jesus, and Mahomet have exerted on the human soul a far
profounder despotism. A conspiracy may overthrow a tyrant, but
what can it avail against a firmly established belief? In its
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: chimerical enterprise. For the first time she felt
her individuality melt into, commingle with his: and
when he lowered his gaze, still with that intensity
of vision piercing the future, her own eyes reflected
the impersonalities of his; and in time he saw it.
XXIV
"We should all wear black for so mournful an oc-
casion," said Rafaella Sal, spreading out her scarlet
skirts.
"Father Abella is right. The occasion is sad
enough without giving it the air of a funeral."
Rezanov |
