| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: years we have been paying, and petting, and obeying, and
worshipping quacks who told us they had the key of the backstairs,
and could smuggle us up them; and in spite of all our
disappointments, we will honour, and glorify, and adore, and
beatify, and translate, and apotheotise you likewise, on the chance
of your knowing something about the backstairs, that we may all go
on pilgrimage to it; and, even if we cannot get up it, lie at the
foot of it, and cry -
'Oh, backstairs,
precious backstairs,
invaluable backstairs,
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Hamlet by William Shakespeare: 'Tis meete that some more audience then a Mother,
Since Nature makes them partiall, should o're-heare
The speech of vantage. Fare you well my Liege,
Ile call vpon you ere you go to bed,
And tell you what I know
King. Thankes deere my Lord.
Oh my offence is ranke, it smels to heauen,
It hath the primall eldest curse vpon't,
A Brothers murther. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharpe as will:
My stronger guilt, defeats my strong intent,
Hamlet |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Art of War by Sun Tzu: be found in so many authors of different epochs, establishes a
very strong anterior to them all, -- in other words, that Sun
Tzu's treatise was already in existence towards the end of the
5th century B.C. Further proof of Sun Tzu's antiquity is
furnished by the archaic or wholly obsolete meanings attaching to
a number of the words he uses. A list of these, which might
perhaps be extended, is given in the HSU LU; and though some of
the interpretations are doubtful, the main argument is hardly
affected thereby. Again, it must not be forgotten that Yeh Shui-
hsin, a scholar and critic of the first rank, deliberately
pronounces the style of the 13 chapters to belong to the early
The Art of War |
