| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: people with a just recognition of the fundamental principles of
society; to this "high argument" "The Prince" contributes but little.
Machiavelli always refused to write either of men or of governments
otherwise than as he found them, and he writes with such skill and
insight that his work is of abiding value. But what invests "The
Prince" with more than a merely artistic or historical interest is the
incontrovertible truth that it deals with the great principles which
still guide nations and rulers in their relationship with each other
and their neighbours.
In translating "The Prince" my aim has been to achieve at all costs an
exact literal rendering of the original, rather than a fluent
The Prince |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: fathers and mothers to retain these feelings throughout their future life,
and to be assured that they will not please us by sorrowing and lamenting
over us. But, if the dead have any knowledge of the living, they will
displease us most by making themselves miserable and by taking their
misfortunes too much to heart, and they will please us best if they bear
their loss lightly and temperately. For our life will have the noblest end
which is vouchsafed to man, and should be glorified rather than lamented.
And if they will direct their minds to the care and nurture of our wives
and children, they will soonest forget their misfortunes, and live in a
better and nobler way, and be dearer to us.
'This is all that we have to say to our families: and to the state we
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: shade, all working incessantly and mutably over shapes and lines and angles
and surfaces too numerous and too great for the sight of man to hold, made
an ever-changing spectacle of supreme beauty and colorful grandeur.
She talked very little while at the Canyon. It silenced her. She had come
to see it at the critical time of her life and in the right mood. The
superficialities of the world shrunk to their proper insignificance. Once
she asked her aunt: "Why did not Glenn bring me here?" As if this Canyon
proved the nature of all things!
But in the end Carley found that the rending strife of the transformation
of her attitude toward life had insensibly ceased. It had ceased during the
long watching of this cataclysm of nature, this canyon of gold-banded
The Call of the Canyon |
