| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: She really did feel afraid, and said this in an almost tearful
voice.
He stepped back from the window and looked at an icon of the
Saviour in His crown of thorns. 'Lord, help me! Lord, help me!'
he exclaimed, crossing himself and bowing low. Then he went to
the door, and opening it into the tiny porch, felt for the hook
that fastened the outer door and began to lift it. He heard
steps outside. She was coming from the window to the door.
'Ah!' she suddenly exclaimed, and he understood that she had
stepped into the puddle that the dripping from the roof had
formed at the threshold. His hands trembled, and he could not
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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: was not the courtiers who worshipped the prince, it was Rome, and
it was not Rome merely, but it was Gaul, it was Spain, it was
Greece and Asia."
To-day the majority of the great men who have swayed men's minds
no longer have altars, but they have statues, or their portraits
are in the hands of their admirers, and the cult of which they
are the object is not notably different from that accorded to
their predecessors. An understanding of the philosophy of
history is only to be got by a thorough appreciation of this
fundamental point of the psychology of crowds. The crowd demands
a god before everything else.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: many fools' heads, which might have produced an idea or two in
the year, if suffered to remain in quiet, get effectually addled
by jolting to and fro in these flying chariots of yours; how many
decent countrymen become conceited bumpkins after a cattle-show
dinner in the capital, which they could not have attended save
for your means; how many decent country parsons return critics
and spouters, by way of importing the newest taste from
Edinburgh? And how will your conscience answer one day for
carrying so many bonny lasses to barter modesty for conceit and
levity at the metropolitan Vanity Fair?
Consider, too, the low rate to which you reduce human intellect.
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