| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: for a match at corks and by one consent a messenger is sent over for
the wagonette - Grez shall be left to-morrow.
To-morrow dawns so fair that two of the party agree to walk back for
exercise, and let their kidnap-sacks follow by the trap. I need
hardly say they are neither of them French; for, of all English
phrases, the phrase 'for exercise' is the least comprehensible across
the Straits of Dover. All goes well for a while with the
pedestrians. The wet woods are full of scents in the noontide. At a
certain cross, where there is a guardhouse, they make a halt, for the
forester's wife is the daughter of their good host at Barbizon. And
so there they are hospitably received by the comely woman, with one
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Cavalry General by Xenophon: friendly disposition on the part of his subordinates, one must
suppose, will best be fostered by a corresponding sympathy on the part
of their commander towards the men themselves, and that not by simple
kindness but by the obvious pains he takes on their behalf, at one
time to provide them with food, and at another to secure safety of
retreat, or again by help of outposts and the like, to ensure
protection during rest and sleep.
When on active service[1] the commander must prove himself
conspicuously careful in the matter of forage, quarters, water-supply,
outposts,[2] and all other requisites; forecasting the future and
keeping ever a wakeful eye in the interest of those under him; and in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other
business which government hath to do therewith, Let a man throw aside
that narrowness of soul, that selfishness of principle, which the niggards
of all professions are willing to part with, and he will be at delivered
of his fears on that head. Suspicion is the companion of mean souls,
and the bane of all good society. For myself, I fully and conscientiously
believe, that it is the will of the Almighty, that there should be diversity
of religious opinions among us: It affords a larger field for our Christian
kindness. Were we all of one way of thinking, our religious dispositions
would want matter for probation; and on this liberal principle, I look
on the various denominations among us, to be like children of the same family,
Common Sense |
