| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: Well, my angel has fallen. Yes, dear, the tale you told me has
tarnished my past joys. Since then I have felt myself humiliated
in you,--you whom I thought the most honorable of men, as you are
the most loving, the most tender. I must indeed have deep
confidence in your heart, so young and pure, to make you this
avowal which costs me much. Ah! my dear love, how is it that you,
knowing your father had unjustly deprived others of their
property, that YOU can keep it?
"'And you told me of this criminal act in a room filled with the
mute witnesses of our love; and you are a gentleman, and you think
yourself noble, and I am yours! I try to find excuses for you; I
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: religion and self-sacrificing idealism, which they believe to be
the essence of his godhood, but which is really only the
machinery of the love of necessary power which is his mortal
weakness. This process secures their fanatical devotion to his
system of government, but he knows perfectly well that such
systems, in spite of their moral pretensions, serve selfish and
ambitious tyrants better than benevolent despots, and that, if
once Alberic gets the ring back, he will easily out-Valhalla
Valhalla, if not buy it over as a going concern. The only chance
of permanent security, then, is the appearance in the world of a
hero who, without any illicit prompting from Wotan, will destroy
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: Crowds are only cognisant of simple and extreme sentiments; the
opinions, ideas, and beliefs suggested to them are accepted or
rejected as a whole, and considered as absolute truths or as not
less absolute errors. This is always the case with beliefs
induced by a process of suggestion instead of engendered by
reasoning. Every one is aware of the intolerance that
accompanies religious beliefs, and of the despotic empire they
exercise on men's minds.
Being in doubt as to what constitutes truth or error, and having,
on the other hand, a clear notion of its strength, a crowd is as
disposed to give authoritative effect to its inspirations as it
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