| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: Of proofs new-bleeding, which remain'd the foil
Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil.
'But ah! who ever shunn'd by precedent
The destin'd ill she must herself assay?
Or force'd examples, 'gainst her own content,
To put the by-pass'd perils in her way?
Counsel may stop awhile what will not stay;
For when we rage, advice is often seen
By blunting us to make our wills more keen.
'Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood,
That we must curb it upon others' proof,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: four English miles diameter, or thereabouts, of which the cottage where the
good old woman lived is supposed to be the centre?--She had been left it
seems a widow in great distress, with three or four small children, in her
forty-seventh year; and as she was at that time a person of decent
carriage,--grave deportment,--a woman moreover of few words and withal an
object of compassion, whose distress, and silence under it, called out the
louder for a friendly lift: the wife of the parson of the parish was
touched with pity; and having often lamented an inconvenience to which her
husband's flock had for many years been exposed, inasmuch as there was no
such thing as a midwife, of any kind or degree, to be got at, let the case
have been never so urgent, within less than six or seven long miles riding;
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Cavalry General by Xenophon: so that it is the merest accident if they do not experience the injury
they were minded to inflict. Conversely, in attacking any enemy whose
superiority is a well-known fact, they will bring the whole of their
force into action.
[12] Or, "one knows of generals," e.g. Iphicrates at Oneion, 369 B.C.
Cf. "Hell." VI. v. 51.
[13] Lit. "an absolutely weak force."
Now, my maxim would be precisely converse: if you attack with a
prospect of superiority, do not grudge employing all the power at your
command; excess of victory[14] never yet caused any conqueror one pang
of remorse.
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