| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: stage, even in its present form, is a school; but any one who is
familiar with a school in its true sense will not be caught with
that bait. I cannot say what will happen in fifty or a hundred
years, but in its actual condition the theatre can serve only as
an entertainment. But this entertainment is too costly to be
frequently enjoyed. It robs the state of thousands of healthy and
talented young men and women, who, if they had not devoted
themselves to the theatre, might have been good doctors, farmers,
schoolmistresses, officers; it robs the public of the evening
hours -- the best time for intellectual work and social
intercourse. I say nothing of the waste of money and the moral
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: delight in telling what honours have been done them, what great
company they have kept, and the like, by which they plainly confess
that these honours were more than their due, and such as their
friends would not believe if they had not been told: whereas a man
truly proud thinks the greatest honours below his merit, and
consequently scorns to boast. I therefore deliver it as a maxim,
that whoever desires the character of a proud man, ought to conceal
his vanity.
Law, in a free country, is, or ought to be, the determination of
the majority of those who have property in land.
One argument used to the disadvantage of Providence I take to be a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: so much hatred, had also well-established beliefs, but in the
struggle which ensued their education told against them,
together with their respect for certain traditions and the rights
of others, scruples which did not in the least trouble their
adversaries.
``The majority of the sentiments of the Girondists,'' writes
Emile Ollivier, ``were delicate and generous; those of the
Jacobin mob were low, gross, and brutal. The name of Vergniaud,
compared with that of the `divine' Marat, measures a gulf which
nothing could span.''
Dominating the Convention at the outset by the superiority of
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