| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: If yonder knight, alas! be slain in fine,
As likest is, great ruth it were you know,
And greater shame, if his victorious foe
Should with his spoils triumphant homeward go.
CII
"Now prove thy skill, thine arrow's sharp head dip
In yonder thievish Frenchman's guilty blood,
I promise thee thy sovereign shall not slip
To give thee large rewards for such a good;"
Thus said the spirit; the man did laugh and skip
For hope of future gain, nor longer stood,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: Judkins's bold reply, both unspoken, was not lost upon Jane.
"Where's your hoss?" asked Lassiter, aloud.
"Left him down the slope," answered Judkins. "I footed it in a
ways, an' slept last night in the sage. I went to the place you
told me you 'moss always slept, but didn't strike you."
"I moved up some, near the spring, an' now I go there nights."
"Judkins--the white herd?" queried Jane, hurriedly.
"Miss Withersteen, I make proud to say I've not lost a steer. Fer
a good while after thet stampede Lassiter milled we hed no
trouble. Why, even the sage dogs left us. But it's begun
agin--thet flashin' of lights over ridge tips, an' queer puffin'
Riders of the Purple Sage |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: the whole male population in the ranks of the army, they have the
power of effecting this object: the consequence is, that in
democratic ages armies seem to grow larger in proportion as the
love of war declines. In the same ages, too, the manner of
carrying on war is likewise altered by the same causes.
Machiavelli observes in "The Prince," "that it is much more
difficult to subdue a people which has a prince and his barons
for its leaders, than a nation which is commanded by a prince and
his slaves." To avoid offence, let us read public functionaries
for slaves, and this important truth will be strictly applicable
to our own time.
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