| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: with the hoarse, hump-backed waves trying to get in, and a black wind
blowing the masts down and tearing the sails into long screaming ribands!
He was to leave the vessel at Melbourne, bid a polite good-bye
to the captain, and go off at once to the gold-fields. Before
a week was over he was to come across a large nugget of pure gold,
the largest nugget that had ever been discovered, and bring it
down to the coast in a waggon guarded by six mounted policemen.
The bushrangers were to attack them three times, and be defeated
with immense slaughter. Or, no. He was not to go to the gold-fields
at all. They were horrid places, where men got intoxicated,
and shot each other in bar-rooms, and used bad language. He was
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Cavalry General by Xenophon: pleasure to spectators. I do not fail to note, moreover, that novel
feats of horsemanship have before now been performed by our knights,
when their commanders have had the ability to get their wishes readily
complied with.
[9] Lit. "everything that may be performed on a mounted horse."
Possibly, as Cobet suggests, {kala} has dropped out. See
"Horsemanship," xi. 3, 6.
But now, let us suppose it is the occasion of the march-past,[10] in
the grounds of the Lyceum, before the javelin-throwing. The scene
would gain in beauty if the tribal squadrons were to ride in line of
columns[11] as if for battle, in two divisions, five squadrons in the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: divided into territories each of which had its own laws and
customs, and each of which paid different imposts. Internal
customs-houses separated them. The unity of France was thus
somewhat artificial. It represented an aggregate of various
countries which the repeated efforts of the kings, including
Louis XIV., had not succeeded in wholly unifying. The most
useful effect of the Revolution was this very unification.
To such material divisions were added social divisions
constituted by different classes--nobles, clergy, and the Third
Estate, whose rigid barriers could only with the utmost
difficulty be crossed.
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