| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Art of War by Sun Tzu: composed a treatise on war, erroneously identified with the
LIU T`AO.]
who had served under the Yin.
[There is less precision in the Chinese than I have thought
it well to introduce into my translation, and the commentaries on
the passage are by no means explicit. But, having regard to the
context, we can hardly doubt that Sun Tzu is holding up I Chih
and Lu Ya as illustrious examples of the converted spy, or
something closely analogous. His suggestion is, that the Hsia
and Yin dynasties were upset owing to the intimate knowledge of
their weaknesses and shortcoming which these former ministers
The Art of War |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: two privates, his executioners. They were in silhouette
against the blue sky. They shouted and gesticulated,
pointing at him. The captain had drawn his pistol, but did
not fire; the others were unarmed. Their movements were
grotesque and horrible, their forms gigantic.
Suddenly he heard a sharp report and something struck the
water smartly within a few inches of his head, spattering his
face with spray. He heard a second report, and saw one of
the sentinels with his rifle at his shoulder, a light cloud
of blue smoke rising from the muzzle. The man in the water
saw the eye of the man on the bridge gazing into his own
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: sky. Nine years she sat and looked neither to the right nor to the
left, nor heard speech of any one, but thought upon the thought of
the morrow. And her nurse fed her in silence, and she took of the
food with her left hand, and ate it without grace.
Now when the nine years were out, it fell dusk in the autumn, and
there came a sound in the wind like a sound of piping. At that the
nurse lifted up her finger in the vaulted house.
"I hear a sound in the wind," said she, "that is like the sound of
piping."
"It is but a little sound," said the King's daughter, "but yet is
it sound enough for me."
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