| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon: will have a chance of saving each the other, and may be expected to
increase their usefulness.
[1] {ekpedan} = exsilire in altum (Sturz, and so Berenger); "to leap
over ditches, and upon high places and down from them."
And here, if any reader should accuse us of repeating ourselves, on
the ground that we are only stating now what we said before on the
same topics,[2] we say that this is not mere repetition. In the former
case, we confined ourselves to advising the purchaser before he
concluded his bargain to test whether the horse could do those
particular things;[3] what we are now maintaining is that the owner
ought to teach his own horse, and we will explain how this teaching is
On Horsemanship |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey: all has been serene. You know nothing of the strife, of the necessity of
fighting, of the cruelty which makes up this border existence. Only two years
have hardened me so that I actually pant for the blood of the renegade who has
robbed me. A frontiersman must take his choice of succumbing or cutting his
way through flesh and bone. Blood will be spilled; if not yours, then your
foe's. The pioneers run from the plow to the fight; they halt in the cutting
of corn to defend themselves, and in winter must battle against cold and
hardship, which would be less cruel if there was time in summer to prepare for
winter, for the savages leave them hardly an opportunity to plant crops. How
many pioneers have given up, and gone back east? Find me any who would not
return home to-morrow, if they could. All that brings them out here is the
The Spirit of the Border |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: "His voice is strong!" said one.
"At times it sounds like an old man's voice!" whispered a
superstitious fellow, who feared some bad spirit hid in the small
child to cheat them by and by.
"Let us take it to our wise chieftain," at length they said;
and the moment they started toward the camp ground the strange
wood-child ceased to cry.
Beside the chieftain's teepee waited the hunters while the
tall man entered with the child.
"How! how!" nodded the kind-faced chieftain, listening to the
queer story. Then rising, he took the infant in his strong arms;
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