| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon: scaling up and springing off high banks. We must test his paces by
galloping him up and down steep pitches and sharp inclines and along a
slant. For each and all of these will serve as a touchstone to gauge
the endurance of his spirit and the soundness of his body.
I am far from saying, indeed, that because an animal fails to perform
all these parts to perfection, he must straightway be rejected; since
many a horse will fall short at first, not from inability, but from
want of experience. With teaching, practice, and habit, almost any
horse will come to perform all these feats beautifully, provided he be
sound and free from vice. Only you must beware of a horse that is
naturally of a nervous temperament. An over-timorous animal will not
On Horsemanship |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: inscriptions on the bases of the statues--Science, History,
Literature.
The light died out. Again I faced the young girl. Gradually she
slipped into the dreary sheath, into the ragged cere-cloths, and
became an aged woman again. Her familiar brought her a little dust,
and she stirred it into the ashes of her chafing-dish, for the weather
was cold and stormy; and then he lighted for her, whose palaces had
been lit with thousands of wax-tapers, a little cresset, that she
might see to read her prayers through the hours of night.
"There is no faith left in the earth! . . ." she said.
In such a perilous plight did I behold the fairest and the greatest,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: as a romantic person. I did not, of course, tear my
hair coram populo over my loss, and she took it for
lordly indifference. Afterwards, I daresay, I did
tell them some of my adventures--such as they were
--and they marvelled greatly at the extent of my
experience. Hermann would translate what he
thought the most striking passages. Getting up on
his legs, and as if delivering a lecture on a phenom-
enon, he addressed himself, with gestures, to the
two women, who would let their sewing sink slowly
on their laps. Meantime I sat before a glass of
Falk |
