| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: these later ages. For those different sects do not easily admit of
an union with each other, or a quiet subjection to the same monarch.
The Abyssins cannot properly be said to have either cities or
houses; they live either in tents, or in cottages made of straw and
clay; for they very rarely build with stone. Their villages or
towns consist of these huts; yet even of such villages they have but
few, because the grandees, the viceroys, and the Emperor himself are
always in the camp, that they may be prepared, upon the most sudden
summons, to go where the exigence of affairs demands their presence.
And this precaution is no more than necessary for a prince every
year engaged either in foreign wars or intestine commotions. These
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: rowers?
ALCIBIADES: No; they are not.
SOCRATES: That would be the office of the pilot?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: But, perhaps you mean that they rule over flute-players, who
lead the singers and use the services of the dancers?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: That would be the business of the teacher of the chorus?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then what is the meaning of being able to rule over men who use
other men?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: is four o'clock, Philippe! In two hours the Russians will begin to
move. I assure you you will again see the Beresina choked with
corpses. Philippe! think of yourself! You have no horses, you cannot
carry the countess in your arms. Come--come with me!" he said
urgently, pulling de Sucy by the arm.
"My friend! abandon Stephanie!"
De Sucy seized the countess, made her stand upright, shook her with
the roughness of a despairing man, and compelled her to wake up. She
looked at him with fixed, dead eyes.
"You must walk, Stephanie, or we shall all die here."
For all answer the countess tried to drop again upon the snow and
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