| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: such a manner that each utters a different sound, and it becomes a kind of
chant. The old man listens, and at length joins in.)
All. Safety and peace! Order and freedom!
Scene II.---Palace of the Regent
Margaret of Parma (in a hunting dress).
Courtiers, Pages, Servants
Regent. Put off the hunt, I shall not ride to-day. Bid Machiavel attend me.
[Exeunt all but the Regent.
The thought of these terrible events leaves me no repose! Nothing can
amuse, nothing divert my mind. These images, these cares are always
before me. The king will now say that these are the natural fruits of my
Egmont |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: perverted and suppressed, and grave subjects daily degraded
in the treatment. The journalist is not reckoned an
important officer; yet judge of the good he might do, the
harm he does; judge of it by one instance only: that when we
find two journals on the reverse sides of politics each, on
the same day, openly garbling a piece of news for the
interest of its own party, we smile at the discovery (no
discovery now!) as over a good joke and pardonable stratagem.
Lying so open is scarce lying, it is true; but one of the
things that we profess to teach our young is a respect for
truth; and I cannot think this piece of education will be
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: equality was formerly maintained by the House of France itself; and in
our day it is so still, at least, nominally; witness the care with
which the kings of France give to their sons the simple title of
count. It was in virtue of this system that Francois I. crushed the
splendid titles assumed by the pompous Charles the Fifth, by signing
his answer: "Francois, seigneur de Vanves." Louis XI. did better still
by marrying his daughter to an untitled gentleman, Pierre de Beaujeu.
The feudal system was so thoroughly broken up by Louis XIV. that the
title of duke became, during his reign, the supreme honor of the
aristocracy, and the most coveted.
Nevertheless there are two or three families in France in which the
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