| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: such mysterious excellence, showing indeed its possessor as opposite
to others, but leading them to a great conformity to him.
66. 1. That whereby the rivers and seas are able to receive the homage
and tribute of all the valley streams, is their skill in being lower
than they;--it is thus that they are the kings of them all. So it is
that the sage (ruler), wishing to be above men, puts himself by his
words below them, and, wishing to be before them, places his person
behind them.
2. In this way though he has his place above them, men do not feel his
weight, nor though he has his place before them, do they feel it an
injury to them.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: and the soles of his boots; his change of clothes and the
bloodstains found upon them, added to which was his apparent
inability to account for his movements on the night in question.
Such as the evidence was, Butler did little to shake it in cross-
examination. His questions were many of them skilful and
pointed, but on more than one occasion the judge intervened to
save him from the danger common to all amateur cross-examiners,
of not knowing when to stop. He was most successful in dealing
with the medical witnesses. Butler had explained the bloodstains
on his clothes as smears that had come from scratches on his
hands, caused by contact with bushes. This explanation the
 A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon: had best keep a narrow eye upon the boar and let fly their javelins
and a pelt of stones, being planted in a ring behind him and a good
way off, until the instant when with a forward heave of his body he
stretches the net tight and strains the skirting-rope. Thereupon he
who is most skilful of the company and of the stoutest nerve will
advance from the front and deliver a home thrust with his hunting-
spear.
[23] Or, "a pretty chase must follow."
[24] Or, "if within the prison of the net the ground be sloping, it
will not take long to make him spring up; he will be up again on
his legs in no time."
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