| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: discussion and shall speak of the arms.
I say, therefore, that the arms with which a prince defends his state
are either his own, or they are mercenaries, auxiliaries, or mixed.
Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one
holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor
safe; for they are disunited, ambitious, and without discipline,
unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have
neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is
deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by
them, and in war by the enemy. The fact is, they have no other
attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of stipend,
The Prince |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: adopted in the Johannine Apocalypse, with little variation, save
in the recognition of Jesus as the Messiah, and in the
transferrence to his second coming of all these wonderful
proceedings. The manner of the Messiah's coming had been
variously imagined. According to an earlier view, he was to enter
Jerusalem as a King of the house of David, and therefore of human
lineage. According to a later view, presented in the Book of
Daniel, he was to descend from the sky, and appear among the
clouds. Both these views were adopted by the disciples of Jesus,
who harmonized them by referring the one to his first and the
other to his second appearance.
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: and when the minister threw his startled eyes towards him, there
the physician sat; his kind, watchful, sympathising,
but never intrusive friend.
158 THE SCARLET LETTER
The Scarlet Letter |
