| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: was necessarily a slow and difficult process, for Silas's meagre
power of explanation was not aided by any readiness of
interpretation in Dolly, whose narrow outward experience gave her no
key to strange customs, and made every novelty a source of wonder
that arrested them at every step of the narrative. It was only by
fragments, and at intervals which left Dolly time to revolve what
she had heard till it acquired some familiarity for her, that Silas
at last arrived at the climax of the sad story--the drawing of
lots, and its false testimony concerning him; and this had to be
repeated in several interviews, under new questions on her part as
to the nature of this plan for detecting the guilty and clearing the
Silas Marner |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: England so far from London, except Devonshire, and the West Riding
of Yorkshire; for example, between the frontiers of Suffolk and the
city of Norwich on this side, which is not above 22 miles in
breadth, are the following market-towns, viz.:-
Thetford, Hingham, Harleston,
Diss, West Dereham, E. Dereham,
Harling, Attleborough, Watton,
Bucknam, Windham, Loddon, etc.
Most of these towns are very populous and large; but that which is
most remarkable is, that the whole country round them is so
interspersed with villages, and those villages so large, and so
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Cavalry General by Xenophon: the enemy's hands may more fitly be described as treason to one's
fellow-combatants than true manliness. So, too, true generalship
consists in attacking where the enemy is weakest, even if the point be
some leagues distant. Severity of toil weighs nothing in the scale
against the danger of engaging a force superior to your own.[17]
Still, if on any occasion the enemy advance in any way to place
himself between fortified points that are friendly to you, let him be
never so superior in force, your game is to attack on whichever flank
you can best conceal your advance, or, still better, on both flanks
simultaneously; since, while one detachment is retiring after
delivering its attack, a charge pressed home from the opposite quarter
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