| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: principles in the truth of which they have ceased to believe.
2. THE REASONING POWER OF CROWDS
It cannot absolutely be said that crowds do not reason and are
not to be influenced by reasoning.
However, the arguments they employ and those which are capable of
influencing them are, from a logical point of view, of such an
inferior kind that it is only by way of analogy that they can be
described as reasoning.
The inferior reasoning of crowds is based, just as is reasoning
of a high order, on the association of ideas, but between the
ideas associated by crowds there are only apparent bonds of
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: crouching among the flowers whence the Bee takes toll.
CHAPTER IX: THE GARDEN SPIDERS: BUILDING THE WEB
The fowling-snare is one of man's ingenious villainies. With
lines, pegs and poles, two large, earth-coloured nets are stretched
upon the ground, one to the right, the other to the left of a bare
surface. A long cord, pulled, at the right moment, by the fowler,
who hides in a brushwood hut, works them and brings them together
suddenly, like a pair of shutters.
Divided between the two nets are the cages of the decoy-birds--
Linnets and Chaffinches, Greenfinches and Yellowhammers, Buntings
and Ortolans--sharp-eared creatures which, on perceiving the
The Life of the Spider |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: "By all means go," said the doctor. "It may be a long time before I
could allow you to see the patient; therefore you can leave without
the slightest self-reproach. In fact, you can really do nothing here
at present. Trust him to Lord Lewin and me; I assure you that I shall
make his recovery, of which I have no doubt, a matter of personal
pride and self-love."
Sallenauve pressed the doctor's hand gratefully, and started for
London without delay. Arriving there at five o'clock, the travellers
were unable to leave before midnight; meantime their eyes were struck
at every turn by those enormous posters which English /puffism/ alone
is able to produce, announcing the second appearance in Her Majesty's
|
