| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: the more powerful dowager if she be the Empress. Such a state of
affairs as these two women lived in for more than a quarter of a
century is almost if not entirely unique in history.
Perhaps the incident which made most impression upon her was one
which happened in 1860 and is recorded in history as the Arrow
War. A few years before a number of Chinese, who owned a boat
called the Arrow, had it registered in Hongkong and hence were
allowed to sail under the British flag. There is no question I
think but that these Chinese were committing acts of piracy, and
as this was one of the causes of disturbance on that southern
coast for centuries past, the viceroy decided to rid the country
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: Nam duo magnorum viridi coeuntia silva
Corpora serpentum baculi violaverat ictu
Deque viro factus, mirabile, femina septem
Egerat autumnos; octavo rursus eosdem
Vidit et 'est vestrae si tanta potentia plagae',
Dixit 'ut auctoris sortem in contraria mutet,
Nunc quoque vos feriam!' percussis anguibus isdem
Forma prior rediit genetivaque venit imago.
Arbiter hic igitur sumptus de lite iocosa
Dicta Iovis firmat; gravius Saturnia iusto
Nec pro materia fertur doluisse suique
The Waste Land |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: goes and complains to his own father, it would be thought wrong on the
part of that father if he did not inflict a second whipping on his
son. A striking proof, in its way, how completely they trust each
other not to impose dishonourable commands upon their children.[3]
[1] Or rather, "members of his household."
[2] See Plut. "Lycurg." 15 (Clough, i. 104).
[3] See Plut. "Moral." 237 D.
In the same way he empowered them to use their neighbour's[4]
domestics in case of need. This communism he applied also to dogs used
for the chase; in so far that a party in need of dogs will invite the
owner to the chase, and if he is not at leisure to attend himself, at
|
