| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: them for the title-deeds of this whole Shaker settlement. You
stare. Perhaps, now, you won't believe that I could have put more
value on a little piece of paper, no bigger than the palm of your
hand, than all these solid acres of grain, grass, and
pasture-land would sell for?"
"I won't dispute it, friend," answered Josiah, "but I know I had
rather have fifty acres of this good land than a whole sheet of
thy paper."
"You may say so now," said the ruined merchant, bitterly, "for my
name would not be worth the paper I should write it on. Of
course, you must have heard of my failure?"
The Snow Image |
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: is for him to preside as a conductor over platform performances
of fragments of his works, which can only be understood when
presented strictly according to his intention on the stage: on
Thursday he gets up a concert of Wagnerian selections, and when
it is over writes to his friends describing how profoundly both
bandsmen and audience were impressed. On Friday he exults in the
self-assertion of Siegfried's will against all moral ordinances,
and is full of a revolutionary sense of "the universal law of
change and renewal": on Saturday he has an attack of holiness,
and asks, "Can you conceive a moral action of which the root idea
is not renunciation?" In short, Wagner can be quoted against
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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: strongly on its intervention in the governing of men. It is not
by reason, but most often in spite of it, that are created those
sentiments that are the mainsprings of all
civilisation--sentiments such as honour, self- sacrifice,
religious faith, patriotism, and the love of glory.
CHAPTER III
THE LEADERS OF CROWDS AND THEIR MEANS OF PERSUASION
1. THE LEADERS OF CROWDS. The instinctive need of all
beings forming a crowd to obey a leader--The psychology of the
leaders of crowds--They alone can endow crowds with faith and
organise them--The leaders forcibly despotic--Classification of
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