| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: he reckoned himself as too weak, when he judged it necessary to
obtain reinforcement. Fatal precaution, waste of precious time!
Javert committed all these blunders, and none the less was one of
the cleverest and most correct spies that ever existed. He was,
in the full force of the term, what is called in venery a knowing dog.
But what is there that is perfect?
Great strategists have their eclipses.
The greatest follies are often composed, like the largest ropes,
of a multitude of strands. Take the cable thread by thread,
take all the petty determining motives separately, and you can break
them one after the other, and you say, "That is all there is of it!"
Les Miserables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: another of his goods at the price of infamy. Had he suffered from this
thirst for riches it would have been easier to cling to what belonged
to him than to take that to which he had no just title. This man, who
was so careful to repay debts of gratitude, where[2] the law knows no
remedy against defaulters, was not likely to commit acts of robbery
which the law regards as criminal. And as a matter of act Agesilaus
judged it not only wrong to forgo repayment of a deed of kindness,
but, where the means were ample, wrong also not to repay such debts
with ample interest.
[1] See Muller and Donaldson, "Hist. Gk. Lit." ii. 196, note 2.
[2] Or, "a state of indebtedness beyond the reach of a tribunal." See
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: youth a miscarriage of justice gave him several years in prison,
an experience which cast a stigma on his name and which made it
impossible for him, for many years after, to obtain honest
employment. But the world is richer, and safer, by Muller's
early misfortune. For it was this experience which threw him
back on his own peculiar talents for a livelihood, and drove him
into the police force. Had he been able to enter any other
profession, his genius might have been stunted to a mere pastime,
instead of being, as now, utilised for the public good.
Then, the red tape and bureaucratic etiquette which attaches to
every governmental department, puts the secret service men of the
|
