| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: "And you had a reserve force to recover the gate which had been opened
to them?" said the prince.
"Monsieur le Marechal de Saint-Andre was there with five hundred men-
at-arms."
The prince gave the highest praise to these military arrangements.
"The lieutenant-general must have been fully aware of the plans of the
Reformers, to have acted as he did," he said in conclusion. "They were
no doubt betrayed."
The prince was treated with increasing harshness. After separating him
from his escort at the gates, the cardinal and the chancellor barred
his way when he reached the staircase which led to the apartments of
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: judges, business men; wherever, in short, enmity has not raised
barriers too strong and high between the parties.
"I gain a pretty good fee out of this compromise," is a reason that
needs no expression in words: it is visible in the gesture, the tone,
the glance; and as attorneys and solicitors meet constantly on this
ground, the matter, whatever it is, is arranged. The counterpoise of
this fraternal system is found in what we may call professional
conscience. The public must believe the physician who says, giving
medical testimony, "This body contains arsenic"; nothing is supposed
to exceed the integrity of the legislator, the independence of the
cabinet minister. In like manner, the attorney of Paris says to his
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: It is also true that the physical form may easily change in the course of
generations through the mode of life; and the weakness or delicacy, which
was once a matter of opinion, may become a physical fact. The
characteristics of sex vary greatly in different countries and ranks of
society, and at different ages in the same individuals. Plato may have
been right in denying that there was any ultimate difference in the sexes
of man other than that which exists in animals, because all other
differences may be conceived to disappear in other states of society, or
under different circumstances of life and training.
The first wave having been passed, we proceed to the second--community of
wives and children. 'Is it possible? Is it desirable?' For as Glaucon
The Republic |
