| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: period, certain works are held--the example of "Tannhauser" may
be cited--which, a few years later, for the same reason are
admired by those who were foremost in criticising them.
The opinions and beliefs of crowds are specially propagated by
contagion, but never by reasoning. The conceptions at present
rife among the working classes have been acquired at the
public-house as the result of affirmation, repetition, and
contagion, and indeed the mode of creation of the beliefs of
crowds of every age has scarcely been different. Renan justly
institutes a comparison between the first founders of
Christianity and "the socialist working men spreading their ideas
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: the value of obedience since we had entered Caspak, I slunk
forward, taking advantage of whatever cover I could find, until
from behind a bush I could distinctly see the creatures assembled
by the fire. They were human and yet not human. I should say
that they were a little higher in the scale of evolution than
Ahm, possibly occupying a place of evolution between that of the
Neanderthal man and what is known as the Grimaldi race. Their features
were distinctly negroid, though their skins were white. A considerable
portion of both torso and limbs were covered with short hair, and
their physical proportions were in many aspects apelike, though not
so much so as were Ahm's. They carried themselves in a more erect
The Land that Time Forgot |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: over the country, stopping only that his master may rest, and I am
awakened by his tramp and defiant snort at midnight, when in some
remote glen in the woods he fronts the elements incased in ice and
snow; and he will reach his stall only with the morning star, to
start once more on his travels without rest or slumber. Or
perchance, at evening, I hear him in his stable blowing off the
superfluous energy of the day, that he may calm his nerves and cool
his liver and brain for a few hours of iron slumber. If the
enterprise were as heroic and commanding as it is protracted and
unwearied!
Far through unfrequented woods on the confines of towns, where
Walden |
