| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: old fellow who keeps out of sight and appears only at the equinoxes or
solstices, looks to me exactly like an assassin."
"Or a bankrupt."
"There's very little difference. To destroy a man's fortune is worse
than to kill the man himself."
"I bet twenty louis, monsieur; there are forty due me."
"Faith, monsieur; there are only thirty left on the cloth."
"Just see what a mixed company there is! One can't play cards in
peace."
"Very true. But it's almost six months since we saw the Spirit. Do you
think he's a living being?"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon: refuse the bit, when that is done to them.[5]
[2] Lit. "on the left-hand side."
[3] {ton megan daktulon}, Hdt. iii. 8.
[4] i.e. "canine tooth."
[5] Or, "it is a very exceptional horse that will not open his mouth
under the circumstances."
The groom can hardly be too much alive to the following points * * *
if any work is to be done:[6] in fact, so important is it that the
horse should readily take his bit, that, to put it tersely, a horse
that will not take it is good for nothing. Now, if the horse be bitted
not only when he has work to do, but also when he is being taken to
On Horsemanship |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: game to eat and to sell as well as they; why not harvest without
sowing the grapes and the grain. Accordingly, the pilfering thefts
which thin the woods and tithe the ploughed lands and meadows and
vineyards became habitual in this valley, and soon existed as a right
throughout the districts of Blangy, Conches, and Cerneux, all adjacent
to the domain of Les Aigues. This sore, for certain reasons which will
be given in due time, did far greater injury to Les Aigues than to the
estates of Ronquerolles or Soulanges. You must not, however, fancy
that Tonsard, his wife and children, and his old mother ever
deliberately said to themselves, "We will live by theft, and commit it
as cleverly as we can." Such habits grow slowly. To the dried sticks
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