| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: I was frankly puzzled by her words and conduct of an hour before;
was it merely one of the trickeries of Le Mire or--
I was interested in the question as one is always interested
in a riddle; but I tossed it from my mind, promising myself a
solution on the morrow, and gave my attention to the vagaries of
nature about me.
We were passing through a cleft between two massive rocks,
some three or four hundred yards in length. Ahead of us, at the
end of the passage, a like boulder fronted us.
Our footfalls echoed and reechoed from wall to wall; the only
other sound was the eery moaning of the wind that reached our ears
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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: CHAPTER IV
ELECTORAL CROWDS
General characteristics of electoral crowds--The manner of
persuading them--The qualities that should be possessed by a
candidate--Necessity of prestige--Why working men and peasants so
rarely choose candidates from their own class--The influence of
words and formulas on the elector--The general aspect of election
oratory--How the opinions of the elector are formed--The power of
political committees--They represent the most redoubtable form of
tyranny--The committees of the Revolution-- Universal suffrage
cannot be replaced in spite of its slight psychological
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Poems by T. S. Eliot: The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.
II
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