| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: He had bought a large map representing the sea,
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
A map they could all understand.
"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
"They are merely conventional signs!
"Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we've got our brave Captain to thank:
(So the crew would protest) "that he's bought us the best--
The Hunting of the Snark |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: by faithful witnesses and for actions like those which they praise. Let me
tell you the pleasure which I feel in hearing of your fame; and I hope that
you will regard me as one of your warmest friends. You ought to have
visited us long ago, and made yourself at home with us; but now, from this
day forward, as we have at last found one another out, do as I say--come
and make acquaintance with me, and with these young men, that I may
continue your friend, as I was your father's. I shall expect you to do so,
and shall venture at some future time to remind you of your duty. But what
say you of the matter of which we were beginning to speak--the art of
fighting in armour? Is that a practice in which the lads may be
advantageously instructed?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: practise the ambidexter ingenuity of the bar, it cost him little
trouble to soften the features of the tumult which he had been
at first so anxiuous to exaggerate. He preached to his
colleagues of the privy council the necessity of using
conciliatory measures with young men, whose blood and temper were
hot, and their experience of life limited. He did not hesitate
to attribute some censure to the conduct of the officer, as
having been unnecessarily irritating.
These were the contents of his public despatches. The letters
which he wrote to those private friends into whose management the
matter was likely to fall were of a yet more favourable tenor.
The Bride of Lammermoor |
