| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: right place, some happy simplicity, or even some lucky subtlety,
has drawn from the great multitude of fellow-beings even as a
fish is drawn from the depths of the sea. Fishing is notoriously
(I am talking now of the deep sea) a matter of luck. As to one's
enemies, those will take care of themselves.
There is a gentleman, for instance, who, metaphorically speaking,
jumps upon me with both feet. This image has no grace, but it is
exceedingly apt to the occasion--to the several occasions. I
don't know precisely how long he had been indulging in that
intermittent exercise, whose seasons are ruled by the custom of
the publishing trade. Somebody pointed him out (in printed
Some Reminiscences |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Cavalry General by Xenophon: the part played by the Roman subsidiarii at the battle of the
Allia, if indeed "una salus fugientibus," was scarcely happy.
Would not "Hell." VII. v. 26 be more to the point? The detachment
of cavalry and infantry placed by Epaminondas "on certain crests,
to create an apprehension in the minds of the Athenians" in that
quarter of the field at Mantinea was a {mekhanema} of the kind
here contemplated.
Another serviceable expedient will be to discover on which side a
friendly force may suddenly appear and without risk to itself put a
drag on the wheels of the pursuer. Nay, it is self-evident, I think,
that, as far as work and speed are concerned, it is the small body
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: separate bit of it help every other bit. She will keep the sun
and stars in order, while she looks after poor old Mrs. Daddy-
long-legs there and her eggs. She will spend thousands of years
in building up a mountain, and thousands of years in grinding it
down again; and then carefully polish every grain of sand which
falls from that mountain, and put it in its right place, where it
will be wanted thousands of years hence; and she will take just as
much trouble about that one grain of sand as she did about the
whole mountain. She will settle the exact place where Mrs. Daddy-
long-legs shall lay her eggs, at the very same time that she is
settling what shall happen hundreds of years hence in a stair
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