| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: will not develop unless by constant exercise. By remaining unmarried,
a creature of the female sex becomes void of meaning; selfish and
cold, she creates repulsion. This implacable judgment of the world is
unfortunately too just to leave old maids in ignorance of its causes.
Such ideas shoot up in their hearts as naturally as the effects of
their saddened lives appear upon their features. Consequently they
wither, because the constant expression of happiness which blooms on
the faces of other women and gives so soft a grace to their movements
has never existed for them. They grow sharp and peevish because all
human beings who miss their vocation are unhappy; they suffer, and
suffering gives birth to the bitterness of ill-will. In fact, before
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: not the (insatiable longing of the) eyes. He puts from him the
latter, and prefers to seek the former.
13. 1. Favour and disgrace would seem equally to be feared; honour and
great calamity, to be regarded as personal conditions (of the same
kind).
2. What is meant by speaking thus of favour and disgrace? Disgrace is
being in a low position (after the enjoyment of favour). The getting
that (favour) leads to the apprehension (of losing it), and the losing
it leads to the fear of (still greater calamity):--this is what is
meant by saying that favour and disgrace would seem equally to be
feared.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: "I agree," said Gane.
"No one can tell," said Thorns. "I doubt if they will get beaten."
It was an odd, fragmentary discussion that night. We were all with
ideas in our minds at once fine and imperfect. We threw out
suggestions that showed themselves at once far inadequate, and we
tried to qualify them by minor self-contradictions. Britten, I
think, got more said than any one. "You all seem to think you want
to organise people, particular groups and classes of individuals,"
he insisted. "It isn't that. That's the standing error of
politicians. You want to organise a culture. Civilisation isn't a
matter of concrete groupings; it's a matter of prevailing ideas.
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