| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon: long, because the snow is quickly thawed. When it snows steadily and
without intermission there is nothing to be done; the tracks will be
covered up. Nor, again, if there be a strong wind blowing, which will
whirl and drift the snow about and obliterate the tracks. It will not
do to take the hounds into the field in that case;[1] since owing to
excessive frost the snow will blister[2] the feet and noses of the
dogs and destroy the hare's scent. Then is the time for the sportsman
to take the haye nets and set off with a comrade up to the hills, and
leave the cultivated lands behind; and when he has got upon the tracks
to follow up the clue. If the tracks are much involved, and he follows
them only to find himself back again ere along at the same place,[3]
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: rung, and, all hands being collected on the top of the
building, three hearty cheers were given on covering the first
apartment. The steward then served out a dram to each, when
the whole retired to their barrack much fatigued, but with the
anticipation of the most perfect repose even in the
"hurricane-house," amidst the dashing seas on the Bell Rock.
While the workmen were at breakfast and dinner it was the
writer's usual practice to spend his time on the walls of the
building, which, notwithstanding the narrowness of the track,
nevertheless formed his principal walk when the rock was under
water. But this afternoon he had his writing-desk set upon
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: And dishes bear him; and the doomed goat
Led by the horn shall at the altar stand,
Whose entrails rich on hazel-spits we'll roast.
This further task again, to dress the vine,
Hath needs beyond exhausting; the whole soil
Thrice, four times, yearly must be cleft, the sod
With hoes reversed be crushed continually,
The whole plantation lightened of its leaves.
Round on the labourer spins the wheel of toil,
As on its own track rolls the circling year.
Soon as the vine her lingering leaves hath shed,
Georgics |
