| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: mind from the deplorable path he seems about to enter. I make no
judgment on the other peculiarities attributed to him by Monsieur
Bixiou, who has a cutting and a flippant tongue; I am more inclined to
think, with Joseph Bridau, that such mistakes are venial. But a fault
to be forever regretted, according to my ideas, will be that of
abandoning his present career to fling himself into the maelstrom of
politics. You are yourself interested in turning him from this idea,
if you strongly desire to entrust that work to his hands. Preach to
him as strongly as you can the wisdom of abiding by his art.
On the subject of the explanation I advised you to have with him, I
must tell you that your task is greatly simplified. You need not enter
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: have often expressed long before this venture of ours in England.
Horse-RACING is not a republican institution; horse-TROTTING is.
Only very rich persons can keep race-horses, and everybody knows
they are kept mainly as gambling implements. All that matter about
blood and speed we won't discuss; we understand all that; useful,
very, - OF course, - great obligations to the Godolphin "Arabian,"
and the rest. I say racing horses are essentially gambling
implements, as much as roulette tables. Now I am not preaching at
this moment; I may read you one of my sermons some other morning;
but I maintain that gambling, on the great scale, is not
republican. It belongs to two phases of society, - a cankered
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: of matter and motion is the inevitable result of the nominal
persistence of Force, and that perfect equilibrium is as impossible
in politics as it certainly is in physics.
The secondary causes which mar the perfection of the Platonic 'city
of the sun' are to be found in the intellectual decay of the race
consequent on injudicious marriages and in the Philistine elevation
of physical achievements over mental culture; while the
hierarchical succession of Timocracy and Oligarchy, Democracy and
Tyranny, is dwelt on at great length and its causes analysed in a
very dramatic and psychological manner, if not in that sanctioned
by the actual order of history.
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