The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon: practise quickening the pace after wheeling is desirable. When the
horse seems to have had enough of the manege, it would be good to give
him a slight pause, and then suddenly to put him to his quickest, away
from his fellows first,[21] and now towards them; and then again to
quiet him down in mid-career as short as possible;[22] and from halt
once more to turn him right-about and off again full charge. It is
easy to predict that the day will come when there will be need of each
of these manouvres.
[21] {mentoi}, "of course."
[22] Or, "within the narrowest compass"; "as finely as possible."
When the moment to dismount has come, you should never do so among
 On Horsemanship |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Horrors! The thing was quite close now. He tried to
scramble up the side of the cabin, and succeeded in
catching a fleeting hold upon the thatched roof.
For a moment he hung there, clawing with his feet like a
cat on a clothesline, but presently a piece of the thatch came
away, and Mr. Philander, preceding it, was precipitated upon
his back.
At the instant he fell a remarkable item of natural history
leaped to his mind. If one feigns death lions and lionesses are
supposed to ignore one, according to Mr. Philander's faulty memory.
So Mr. Philander lay as he had fallen, frozen into the horrid
 Tarzan of the Apes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: office generally so fragile. A soldier -- New England's most
distinguished soldier -- he stood firmly on the pedestal of his
gallant services; and, himself secure in the wise liberality of
the successive administrations through which he had held office,
he had been the safety of his subordinates in many an hour of
danger and heart-quake General Miller was radically con-
THE CUSTOM-HOUSE 19
 The Scarlet Letter |