| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: Xerxes. You should consider how inferior we are to them both in the
derivation of our birth and in other particulars. Did you never observe
how great is the property of the Spartan kings? And their wives are under
the guardianship of the Ephori, who are public officers and watch over
them, in order to preserve as far as possible the purity of the Heracleid
blood. Still greater is the difference among the Persians; for no one
entertains a suspicion that the father of a prince of Persia can be any one
but the king. Such is the awe which invests the person of the queen, that
any other guard is needless. And when the heir of the kingdom is born, all
the subjects of the king feast; and the day of his birth is for ever
afterwards kept as a holiday and time of sacrifice by all Asia; whereas,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Cavalry General by Xenophon: promptitude will be displayed: supposing the attack is made in front,
by the file-leaders who know that this is their appointed post; or in
case of danger suddenly appearing in rear, then by the rear-rank men,
whose main idea is that to desert one's post is base. A want of
orderly arrangement, on the contrary, leads to confusion worse
confounded at every narrow road, at every passage of a river; and when
it comes to fighting, no one of his own free will assigns himself his
proper post in face of an enemey.
[10] Lit. "where to ride," i.e. in what formation whether on the line
of march or in action.
The above are fundamental matters not to be performed without the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: recorded. God knows what remains on the paper of the scenes at white
heat in which a look, a tone, a quiver of the features, the faintest
touch of color lent by some emotion, has been fraught with danger, as
though the adversaries were savages watching each other to plant a
fatal stroke. A report is no more than the ashes of the fire.
"What is your real name?" Camusot asked Jacques Collin.
"Don Carlos Herrera, canon of the Royal Chapter of Toledo, and secret
envoy of His Majesty Ferdinand VII."
It must here be observed that Jacques Collin spoke French like a
Spanish trollop, blundering over it in such a way as to make his
answers almost unintelligible, and to require them to be repeated. But
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