| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: lady might fan herself gracefully, smile on the young men who bowed to
her, and bring into play all the arts by which a woman hides her
emotion,--the Dowager, one of the most clear-sighted and mischief-
loving duchesses bequeathed by the eighteenth century to the
nineteenth, could read her heart and mind through it all.
The old lady seemed to detect the slightest movement that revealed the
impressions of the soul. The imperceptible frown that furrowed that
calm, pure forehead, the faintest quiver of the cheeks, the curve of
the eyebrows, the least curl of the lips, whose living coral could
conceal nothing from her,--all these were to the Duchess like the
print of a book. From the depths of her large arm-chair, completely
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Art of War by Sun Tzu: SSU-MA FA: "Give instructions only on sighting the enemy; give
rewards when you see deserving deeds." Ts`ao Kung's paraphrase:
"The final instructions you give to your army should not
correspond with those that have been previously posted up."
Chang Yu simplifies this into "your arrangements should not be
divulged beforehand." And Chia Lin says: "there should be no
fixity in your rules and arrangements." Not only is there danger
in letting your plans be known, but war often necessitates the
entire reversal of them at the last moment.]
and you will be able to handle a whole army as though you had to
do with but a single man.
The Art of War |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: necessary vigour. By the 6th of January, Aua and Fangatonga,
districts in Tutuila, having made a difficulty, Brandeis is down at
the island in a schooner, with the ADLER at his heels, seizes the
chief Maunga, fines the recalcitrant districts in three hundred
dollars for expenses, and orders all to be in by April 20th, which
if it is not, "not one thing will be done," he proclaimed, "but war
declared against you, and the principal chiefs taken to a distant
island." He forbade mortgages of copra, a frequent source of
trickery and quarrel; and to clear off those already contracted,
passed a severe but salutary law. Each individual or family was
first to pay off its own obligation; that settled, the free man was
|
