| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: later to the same level. And sometimes the more unscrupulous man is better
esteemed than the more conscientious, because he has not equally deceived
expectations. Such sentiments may be unjust, but they are widely spread;
we constantly find them recurring in reviews and newspapers, and still
oftener in private conversation.
We may further observe that the art of government, while in some respects
tending to improve, has in others a tendency to degenerate, as institutions
become more popular. Governing for the people cannot easily be combined
with governing by the people: the interests of classes are too strong for
the ideas of the statesman who takes a comprehensive view of the whole.
According to Socrates the true governor will find ruin or death staring him
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell: would fall.''
[57] ``L'Anarchie et le Collectivisme,'' p. 114.
This statement puts the alternative in a very
extreme form in which it is somewhat unreal. It may
be said in reply that for those who have had the
leisure and the opportunity to enjoy ``eternal
truths'' it is easy to exalt their importance at the
expense of sufferings which fall on others. This is
true; but, if it is taken as disposing of the question,
it leaves out of account the importance of thought
for progress. Viewing the life of mankind as a whole,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: of the moon. The white light seemed to envelop her in a silver mist,
the prints of her humid steps shone upon the flag-stones, stars
quivered in the depth of the water; it tightened upon her its black
rings that were spotted with scales of gold. Salammbo panted beneath
the excessive weight, her loins yielded, she felt herself dying, and
with the tip of its tail the serpent gently beat her thigh; then the
music becoming still it fell off again.
Taanach came back to her; and after arranging two candelabra, the
lights of which burned in crystal balls filled with water, she tinged
the inside of her hands with Lawsonia, spread vermilion upon her
cheeks, and antimony along the edge of her eyelids, and lengthened her
Salammbo |
