| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: This is another day, and the bold world
Leaps up and grasps its light, and laughs, as leapt
Prometheus up and wrenched the fire from Zeus.
This is another day--are its eyes blurred
With maudlin grief for any wasted past?
A thousand thousand failures shall not daunt!
Let dust clasp dust; death, death--I am alive!
And out of all the dust and death of mine
Old selves I dare to lift a singing heart
And living faith; my spirit dares drink deep
Of the red mirth mantling in the cup of morn.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: practising the arts of divination), and told him of their plans,
and returned to the king at day-break. Again he demanded
horsemen, and made as though he went in quest of Barlaam. When
he was gone forth, and was walking the desert, a man was seen to
issue from a ravine. Araches gave command to his men to pursue
him. They took and brought him before their master. When asked
who he was, what his religion and what his name, the man declared
himself a Christian and gave his name as Barlaam, even as he had
been instructed. Araches made great show of joy, apprehended him
and returned quickly to the king, and told his tale and produced
his man. Then said the king in the hearing of all present, "Art
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon: have at least two bits. One of these should be smooth, with discs of a
good size; the other should have heavy and flat discs[4] studded with
sharp spikes, so that when the horse seizes it and dislikes the
roughness he will drop it; then when the smooth is given him instead,
he is delighted with its smoothness, and whatever he has learnt before
upon the rough, he will perform with greater relish on the smooth. He
may certainly, out of contempt for its very smoothness, perpetually
try to get a purchase on it, and that is why we attach large discs to
the smooth bit, the effect of which is to make him open his mouth, and
drop the mouthpiece. It is possible to make the rough bit of every
degree of roughness by keeping it slack or taut.
On Horsemanship |
