| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: spermaceti, is obtained. All his peculiarities will, in many other
places, be enlarged upon. It is chiefly with his name that I now
have to do. Philologically considered, it is absurd. Some centuries
ago, when the Sperm whale was almost wholly unknown in his own
proper individuality, and when his oil was only accidentally obtained
from the stranded fish; in those days spermaceti, it would seem, was
popularly supposed to be derived from a creature identical with the
one then known in England as the Greenland or Right Whale. It was
the idea also, that this same spermaceti was that quickening humor of
the Greenland Whale which the first syllable of the word literally
expresses. In those times, also, spermaceti was exceedingly scarce,
Moby Dick |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: of pleasures? When the rake of pestilence and the ploughshare of war
and the demon of desolation have passed over a corner of the globe and
obliterated all things, who will be found to have the greater
reason,--the Nubian savage or the patrician of Thebes? Your doubts
descend the scale, they go from heights to depths, they embrace all,
the end as well as the means.
"But if the physical world seems inexplicable, the moral world
presents still stronger arguments against God. Where, then, is
progress? If all things are indeed moving toward perfection why do we
die young? why do not nations perpetuate themselves? The world having
issued from God and being contained in God can it be stationary? Do we
Seraphita |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: that otherwise they would not have allowed the Church to reach such
greatness. And in fact is has been seen that the greatness of the
Church and of Spain in Italy has been caused by France, and her ruin
may be attributed to them. From this a general rule is drawn which
never or rarely fails: that he who is the cause of another becoming
powerful is ruined; because that predominancy has been brought about
either by astuteness or else by force, and both are distrusted by him
who has been raised to power.
CHAPTER IV
WHY THE KINGDOM OF DARIUS, CONQUERED BY ALEXANDER, DID NOT REBEL
AGAINST THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER AT HIS DEATH
The Prince |
