| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: still as clouds which the son of Saturn has spread upon the
mountain tops when there is no air and fierce Boreas sleeps with
the other boisterous winds whose shrill blasts scatter the clouds
in all directions--even so did the Danaans stand firm and
unflinching against the Trojans. The son of Atreus went about
among them and exhorted them. "My friends," said he, "quit
yourselves like brave men, and shun dishonour in one another's
eyes amid the stress of battle. They that shun dishonour more
often live than get killed, but they that fly save neither life
nor name."
As he spoke he hurled his spear and hit one of those who were in
The Iliad |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: our impatient violence in Professor Dunning's book, The British Empire
and the United States. Indeed, this volume tells at length everything I
am telling you briefly about these boundary disputes. The settlers wished
to be under our Government. Virtually upon their preference the matter
was finally adjusted. England met us with a compromise, advantageous to
us and reasonable for herself. Thus, again, was her conduct moderate
and pacific. If you think that this was through fear of us, I can only
leave you to our western blow-hards of 1845, or to your anti-British
complex. What I see in it, is another sign of that fundamental sense of
kinship, that persisting unwillingness to have a real scrap with us, that
stares plainly out of our whole first century--the same feeling which
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Betty Zane by Zane Grey: thrown up and his front hoofs pawing the air like Marcus Curtius' mailed steed
of old, and then down with a crash, a cloud of dust, and the crackling of pine
limbs. A long yell went up from the Indians below, while those above ran to
the edge of the cliff. With cries of wonder and baffled vengeance they
gesticulated toward the dark ravine into which horse and rider had plunged
rather than wait to meet a more cruel death. The precipice at this point is
over three hundred feet in height, and in places is almost perpendicular. We
believed the Major to be lying crushed and mangled on the rocks. Imagine our
frenzy of Joy when we saw the daring soldier and his horse dash out of the
bushes that skirt the base of the cliff, cross the creek, and come galloping
to the fort in safety."
Betty Zane |
