| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: for proof of this. I will merely print one of the newspaper
paragraphs which I am in the habit of cutting out and throwing into
my store-drawer; here is one from a 'Daily Telegraph' of an early
date this year (1867); (date which, though by me carelessly left
unmarked, is easily discoverable; for on the back of the slip there
is the announcement that "yesterday the seventh of the special
services of this year was performed by the Bishop of Ripon in St.
Paul's";) it relates only one of such facts as happen now daily;
this by chance having taken a form in which it came before the
coroner. I will print the paragraph in red. Be sure, the facts
themselves are written in that colour, in a book which we shall all
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw: of magic. There was a confounded fern owl. Did you ever hear the
churr of a fern owl? Did you ever hear it create a sudden silence by
ceasing? Did you ever hear it call its mate by striking its wings
together twice and whistling that single note that no nightingale can
imitate? That is what happened in the woods when I was running away.
So I turned; and the pursuer became the pursued.
HYPATIA. I had to fight like a wild cat.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Please dont tell us this. It's not fit for old
people to hear.
TARLETON. Come: how did it end?
HYPATIA. It's not ended yet.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: better families, all devoted as one man to the Government, grew more
exclusive here than in any other part of France. "The man of
L'Houmeau" became little better than a pariah. Hence the deep,
smothered hatred which broke out everywhere with such ugly unanimity
in the insurrection of 1830 and destroyed the elements of a durable
social system in France. As the overweening haughtiness of the Court
nobles detached the provincial noblesse from the throne, so did these
last alienate the bourgeoisie from the royal cause by behavior that
galled their vanity in every possible way.
So "a man of L'Houmeau," a druggist's son, in Mme. de Bargeton's house
was nothing less than a little revolution. Who was responsible for it?
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