| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: of eternal order, where he and Holmes, these coarse chances,
these wrestling souls, these creeds, Catholic or Humanitarian,
even that namby-pamby Kitts and his picture, might be
unconsciously working out their part. Looking out of the
hospital-window, he saw the deep of the stainless blue,
impenetrable, with the stars unconscious in their silence of the
maddest raging of the petty world. There was such calm! such
infinite love and justice! it was around, above him; it held him,
it held the world,--all Wrong, all Right! For an instant the
turbid heart of the man cowered, awestruck, as yours or mine has
done when some swift touch of music or human love gave us a
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: osier-beds and the basket-making were two business speculations whose
results were only appreciated after a lapse of four years. Of course,
you know that osiers must be three years old before they are fit to
cut.
"At the commencement of operations, the basket-maker was boarded and
lodged gratuitously. Before very long he married a woman from Saint
Laurent du Pont, who had a little money. Then he had a house built, in
a healthy and very airy situation which I chose, and my advice was
followed as to the internal arrangements. Here was a triumph! I had
created a new industry, and had brought a producer and several workers
into the town. I wonder if you will regard my elations as childish?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: there alone, that we find no weakness and no failure.
Although the light of almost four centuries has been focused on "The
Prince," its problems are still debatable and interesting, because
they are the eternal problems between the ruled and their rulers. Such
as they are, its ethics are those of Machiavelli's contemporaries; yet
they cannot be said to be out of date so long as the governments of
Europe rely on material rather than on moral forces. Its historical
incidents and personages become interesting by reason of the uses
which Machiavelli makes of them to illustrate his theories of
government and conduct.
Leaving out of consideration those maxims of state which still furnish
The Prince |
