| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon: perpetually hunting for the portion which escapes him, he lets the
mouthpiece go from his bars.[6] For this reason the rings are hung in
the middle from the two axles,[7] so that while feeling for them with
his tongue and teeth he may neglect to take the bit up against his
jaws.
[5] Or, "poker," as we might say; lit. "spit."
[6] Schneid. cf. Eur. "Hippol." 1223.
[7] See Morgan, note ad loc. Berenger (i. 261) notes: "We have a small
chain in the upset or hollow part of our bits, called a 'Player,'
with which the horse playing with his tongue, and rolling it
about, keeps his mouth moist and fresh; and, as Xenophon hints, it
On Horsemanship |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: features, was entirely changed. Napa valley was gone; gone
were all the lower slopes and woody foothills of the range;
and in their place, not a thousand feet below me, rolled a
great level ocean. It was as though I had gone to bed the
night before, safe in a nook of inland mountains, and had
awakened in a bay upon the coast. I had seen these
inundations from below; at Calistoga I had risen and gone
abroad in the early morning, coughing and sneezing, under
fathoms on fathoms of gray sea vapour, like a cloudy sky - a
dull sight for the artist, and a painful experience for the
invalid. But to sit aloft one's self in the pure air and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: But I've always taken for granted a private understanding."
"Well, there WAS one. But there isn't now." That was all he said
save something about Mrs. Erme's having got on her feet again in
the most extraordinary way - a remark pointing, as I supposed, the
moral that private understandings were of little use when the
doctor didn't share them. What I took the liberty of more closely
inferring was that the girl might in some way have estranged him.
Well, if he had taken the turn of jealousy for instance it could
scarcely be jealousy of me. In that case - over and above the
absurdity of it - he wouldn't have gone away just to leave us
together. For some time before his going we had indulged in no
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