| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Poems by Bronte Sisters: He sits in solitude,
And circled round with light and mirth,
Cold horror chills his blood.
His mind would hold with desperate clutch
The scene that round him lies;
No--changed, as by some wizard's touch,
The present prospect flies.
A tumult vague--a viewless strife
His futile struggles crush;
'Twixt him and his an unknown life
And unknown feelings rush.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: carefully cut a round of it, then divided the round in two, laid the
pieces on a plate, and passed the plate across the table to the young
painter, with the silence and coolness of an old soldier who says to
himself on the eve of battle, "Well, I can meet death." Joseph took
the half-slice, and fully understood that he was not to ask for any
more. No member of the family was the least surprised at this
extraordinary performance. The conversation went on. Agathe learned
that the house in which she was born, her father's house before he
inherited that of the old Descoings, had been bought by the Borniches;
she expressed a wish to see it once more.
"No doubt," said her godmother, "the Borniches will be here this
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon: pleasure does this action afford him, if he is not forced to perform
it to excess; since it is true of horse and man alike that nothing is
pleasant if carried to excess.[10]
[10] L. Dind. cf. Eur. "Med." 128, {ta de' uperballont oudena kairon}.
But now suppose he has attained to the grand style when ridden--we
have accustomed him of course in his first exercise to wheel and fall
into a canter simultaneously; assuming then, he has got that lesson
well by heart, if the rider pulls him up with the bit while
simultaneously giving him one of the signals to be off, the horse,
galled on the one hand by the bit, and on the other collecting himself
in obedience to the signal "off," will throw forward his chest and
On Horsemanship |
