| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon: when he finds himself in close proximity to the foe, he must keep his
horse well in hand. This, in all probability, will enable him to do
the greatest mischief to the enemy, and to receive least damage at his
hands.
[12] See "Hipparch," viii. 23.
The gods have bestowed on man, indeed, the gift of teaching man his
duty by means of speech and reasoning, but the horse, it is obvious,
is not open to instruction by speech and reasoning. If you would have
a horse learn to perform his duty, your best plan will be, whenever he
does as you wish, to show him some kindness in return, and when he is
disobedient to chastise him. This principle, though capable of being
On Horsemanship |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: Night's Dream the persons of the drama are not quite so ready for
treachery and murder as Laertes and even Hamlet himself (not to
mention the procession of ruffians who pass through the latest plays)
it is certainly not because they have any more regard for law or
religion. There is only one place in Shakespear's plays where the
sense of shame is used as a human attribute; and that is where Hamlet
is ashamed, not of anything he himself has done, but of his mother's
relations with his uncle. This scene is an unnatural one: the son's
reproaches to his mother, even the fact of his being able to discuss
the subject with her, is more repulsive than her relations with her
deceased husband's brother.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: came to remonstrate with her. She brought her most caustic wit into
play. She said that as noble families could not produce a Moliere, a
Racine, a Rousseau, a Voltaire, a Massillon, a Beaumarchais, or a
Diderot, people must make up their minds to it, and accept the fact
that great men had upholsterers and clockmakers and cutlers for their
fathers. She said that genius was always noble. She railed at boorish
squires for understanding their real interests so imperfectly. In
short, she talked a good deal of nonsense, which would have let the
light into heads less dense, but left her audience agape at her
eccentricity. And in these ways she conjured away the storm with her
heavy artillery.
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