| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: man and things, that has helped me beyond any possibility of
expression in words: so that while for the first year of my
imprisonment I did nothing else, and can remember doing nothing
else, but wring my hands in impotent despair, and say, 'What an
ending, what an appalling ending!' now I try to say to myself, and
sometimes when I am not torturing myself do really and sincerely
say, 'What a beginning, what a wonderful beginning!' It may really
be so. It may become so. If it does I shall owe much to this new
personality that has altered every man's life in this place.
You may realise it when I say that had I been released last May, as
I tried to be, I would have left this place loathing it and every
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: Liberalism never has been nor ever can be anything but a diversified
crowd. Liberalism has to voice everything that is left out by these
other parties. It is the party against the predominating interests.
It is at once the party of the failing and of the untried; it is the
party of decadence and hope. From its nature it must be a vague and
planless association in comparison with its antagonist, neither so
constructive on the one hand, nor on the other so competent to
hinder the inevitable constructions of the civilised state.
Essentially it is the party of criticism, the "Anti" party. It is a
system of hostilities and objections that somehow achieves at times
an elusive common soul. It is a gathering together of all the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: life exempt from care. Whether it were that the habit of living in
this house to which infirmities confined her enabled her to perceive
certain natural effects that are imperceptible to the senses of
others, but which persons under the influence of excessive feeling are
keen to discover, or whether Nature, in compensation for her physical
defects, had given her more delicate sensations than better organized
beings,--it is certain that this woman had heard the steps of a man in
a gallery built above the kitchens and the servants' hall, by which
the front house communicated with the "back-quarter." The steps grew
more distinct. Soon, without possessing the power of this ardent
creature to abolish space and meet her other self, even a stranger
|
