| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: for all the times when we must listen gravely to solemn nonsense
justifying laws passed on the spur of the moment."
"He is right," said Blondet. "What times we live in, gentlemen! When
the fire of intelligence appears among us, it is promptly quenched by
haphazard legislation. Almost all our lawgivers come up from little
parishes where they studied human nature through the medium of the
newspapers; forthwith they shut down the safety-valve, and when the
machinery blows up there is weeping and gnashing of teeth! We do
nothing nowadays but pass penal laws and levy taxes. Will you have the
sum of it all!--There is no religion left in the State!"
"Oh, bravo, Blondet!" cried Bixiou, "thou hast set thy finger on the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: from the class, and Fettes smiled to himself as he imagined
him still squiring the intolerable Gray from tavern to
tavern. As soon as the hour of liberty had struck he posted
from place to place in quest of his last night's companions.
He could find them, however, nowhere; so returned early to
his rooms, went early to bed, and slept the sleep of the
just.
At four in the morning he was awakened by the well-known
signal. Descending to the door, he was filled with
astonishment to find Macfarlane with his gig, and in the gig
one of those long and ghastly packages with which he was so
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: SOCRATES: Do you observe, Meno, that I am not teaching the boy anything,
but only asking him questions; and now he fancies that he knows how long a
line is necessary in order to produce a figure of eight square feet; does
he not?
MENO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And does he really know?
MENO: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: He only guesses that because the square is double, the line is
double.
MENO: True.
SOCRATES: Observe him while he recalls the steps in regular order. (To
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