| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: fight with those who were arrayed opposite to them, or to give any
assistance to their own flanks. So, without much difficulty,
Castruccio put the enemy to flight on both flanks, and the centre
battalions took to flight when they found themselves exposed to
attack, without having a chance of displaying their valour. The defeat
was complete, and the loss in men very heavy, there being more than
ten thousand men killed with many officers and knights of the Guelph
party in Tuscany, and also many princes who had come to help them,
among whom were Piero, the brother of King Ruberto, and Carlo, his
nephew, and Filippo, the lord of Taranto. On the part of Castruccio
the loss did not amount to more than three hundred men, among whom was
The Prince |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: nearly anything it pleases until that much-to-be-desired hour
when the Gentile vote shall quietly swamp out Mormonism; but the
garrison is kept there in case of accidents. The big,
shark-mouthed, pig-eared, heavy-boned farmers sometimes take to
their creed with wildest fanaticism, and in past years have made
life excessively unpleasant for the Gentile when he was few in
the land. But to-day, so far from killing openly or secretly, or
burning Gentile farms, it is all the Mormon dare do to feebly try
to boycott the interloper. His journals preach defiance to the
United States Government, and in the Tabernacle on a Sunday the
preachers follow suit.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: reading, as long as you can read the great green book, of which
every bud is a letter, and every tree a page.
Wonder if you will. You cannot wonder too much. That you might
wonder all your life long, God put you into this wondrous world,
and gave you that faculty of wonder which he has not given to the
brutes; which is at once the mother of sound science, and a pledge
of immortality in a world more wondrous even than this. But
wonder at the right thing, not at the wrong; at the real miracles
and prodigies, not at the sham. Wonder not at the world of man.
Waste not your admiration, interest, hope on it, its pretty toys,
gay fashions, fine clothes, tawdry luxuries, silly amusements.
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