| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: taken out and their cloths put on, and they were walked up and
down a distant glade while we sat in the sleigh and picnicked.
It is a hard day for the horses,--nearly thirty miles there and back
and no stable in the middle; but they are so fat and spoiled that it
cannot do them much harm sometimes to taste the bitterness of life.
I warmed soup in a little apparatus I have for such occasions,
which helped to take the chilliness off the sandwiches,--this is
the only unpleasant part of a winter picnic, the clammy quality of
the provisions just when you most long <206> for something very hot.
Minora let her nose very carefully out of its wrappings,
took a mouthful, and covered it up quickly again. She was nervous
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: climbed the crags laboriously as an ant, gripping root and
rock with his hands, clutching every stone in the trail
with his bare feet.
When he reached the summit, he glanced down to
see the sun steeping the valley in a lake of gold. Near the
canyon, enormous rocks loomed protrudent, like fantastic
Negro skulls. The pitaya trees rose tenuous, tall, like the
tapering, gnarled fingers of a giant; other trees of all sorts
bowed their crests toward the pit of the abyss. Amid
the stark rocks and dry branches, roses bloomed like a
white offering to the sun as smoothly, suavely, it unrav-
The Underdogs |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon: scaling up and springing off high banks. We must test his paces by
galloping him up and down steep pitches and sharp inclines and along a
slant. For each and all of these will serve as a touchstone to gauge
the endurance of his spirit and the soundness of his body.
I am far from saying, indeed, that because an animal fails to perform
all these parts to perfection, he must straightway be rejected; since
many a horse will fall short at first, not from inability, but from
want of experience. With teaching, practice, and habit, almost any
horse will come to perform all these feats beautifully, provided he be
sound and free from vice. Only you must beware of a horse that is
naturally of a nervous temperament. An over-timorous animal will not
On Horsemanship |
