| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: coming after me. My oxen now behaved themselves with singular
<166>propriety, opposing their present conduct to my
representation of their former antics. I almost wished, now that
Covey was coming, they would do something in keeping with the
character I had given them; but no, they had already had their
spree, and they could afford now to be extra good, readily
obeying my orders, and seeming to understand them quite as well
as I did myself. On reaching the woods, my tormentor--who seemed
all the way to be remarking upon the good behavior of his oxen--
came up to me, and ordered me to stop the cart, accompanying the
same with the threat that he would now teach me how to break
My Bondage and My Freedom |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: misdemeanours, a teller of the truth. I went to his house, told
him what I had heard, and besought him to be frank. I do not think
I had ever a more painful interview. Perhaps you will understand
me, Mr. Wiltshire, if I tell you that I am perfectly serious in
these old wives' tales with which you reproached me, and as anxious
to do well for these islands as you can be to please and to protect
your pretty wife. And you are to remember that I thought Namu a
paragon, and was proud of the man as one of the first ripe fruits
of the mission. And now I was informed that he had fallen in a
sort of dependence upon Case. The beginning of it was not corrupt;
it began, doubtless, in fear and respect, produced by trickery and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Cavalry General by Xenophon: useful, whether for purposes of attack or defence; just as it is
useful also to enforce a halt at the passage of a river or some other
defile, so that the men in rear may not knock their horses all to bits
in endeavouring to overtake their leader. These are precepts known, I
admit, to nearly all the world, but it is by no means every one who
will take pains to apply them carefully.[7]
[7] See "Econ." xx. 6. foll.
It is the business of the hipparch to take infinite precautions while
it is still peace, to make himself acquainted with the details, not
only of his own, but of the hostile territory;[8] or if, as may well
betide, he personally should lack the knowledge, he should invite the
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