| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: holding the reins. Among the things reserved were that he should
kotow to her once every five days whether she were in Peking or
at the Summer Place, and she reserved such seals of office as
made it necessary for all the highest officials to come and
express their obligations to her at the same time they came to
thank the Emperor. While Kuang Hsu may have been reconciled to
the performance of these duties at eighteen, they became irksome
at twenty-seven and he demanded and received full liberty in the
affairs of state.
We have seen how he used his liberty,--not wisely, perhaps, as a
reformer, and yet the reformation of China can never be written
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: of discretion?
ALCIBIADES: How do you mean?
SOCRATES: Do you believe that a man must be either in or out of his
senses; or is there some third or intermediate condition, in which he is
neither one nor the other?
ALCIBIADES: Decidedly not.
SOCRATES: He must be either sane or insane?
ALCIBIADES: So I suppose.
SOCRATES: Did you not acknowledge that madness was the opposite of
discretion?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: they might hope to be in sight of the town.
No kind of boat was to be found; they had been obliged
to make one; a raft, or rather a float of wood, similar to
those which usually are drifted down Siberian rivers, was
constructed. A forest of firs, growing on the bank, had
supplied the necessary materials; the trunks, fastened to-
gether with osiers, made a platform on which a hundred
people could have easily found room.
On board this raft Michael and Nadia were taken. The
girl had returned to herself; some food was given to her as
well as to her companion. Then, lying on a bed of leaves,
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