| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw: good or bad: I want to be an active verb.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. An active verb? Oh, I see. An active verb
signifies to be, to do, or to suffer.
HYPATIA. Just so: how clever of you! I want to be; I want to do;
and I'm game to suffer if it costs that. But stick here doing nothing
but being good and nice and ladylike I simply wont. Stay down here
with us for a week; and I'll shew you what it means: shew it to you
going on day after day, year after year, lifetime after lifetime.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Shew me what?
HYPATIA. Girls withering into ladies. Ladies withering into old
maids. Nursing old women. Running errands for old men. Good for
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon: [10] For this belief Schneid. cf Aristot. "H. A." vi. 18; Plin. viii.
42; Aelian, "H. A." ii. 10, xi. 18, xii. 16, to which Dr. Morgan
aptly adds Soph. "Fr." 587 (Tyro), a beautiful passage, {komes de
penthos lagkhano polou diken, k.t.l.} (cf. Plut. "Mor." 754 A).
Washing of the legs we are inclined to dispense with--no good is done
but rather harm to the hoofs by this daily washing. So, too, excessive
cleanliness of the belly is to be discouraged; the operation itself is
most annoying to the horse; and the cleaner these parts are made, the
thicker the swarm of troublesome things which collect beneath the
belly. Besides which, however elaborately you clean these parts, the
horse is no sooner led out than presently he will be just as dirty as
On Horsemanship |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: must be some thing in it." However, on his next name-day (which
he used to celebrate by a great three days' shooting party), of
all the invited crowd only two guests turned up, distant
neighbours of no importance; one notoriously a fool, and the
other a very pious and honest person, but such a passionate lover
of the gun that on his own confession he could not have refused
an invitation to a shooting party from the devil himself. X met
this manifestation of public opinion with the serenity of an
unstained conscience. He refused to be crushed. Yet he must
have been a man of deep feeling, because, when his wife took
openly the part of her children, he lost his beautiful
A Personal Record |
