| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: syntactic devices are becoming familiar to scholars; one great
philologist has even composed a tale in it; yet in studying
this long-buried dialect we are not much nearer the first
beginnings of human speech than in studying the Greek of
Homer, the Sanskrit of the Vedas, or the Umbrian of the
Igovine Inscriptions. The Aryan mother-tongue had passed into
the last of the three stages of linguistic growth long before
the break-up of the tribal communities in Aryana-vaedjo, and
at that early date presented a less primitive structure than
is to be seen in the Chinese or the Mongolian of our own
times. So the state of society depicted in the Homeric poems,
Myths and Myth-Makers |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: the contrary, a capital lightning-conductor; is not that so? Of
course, I mean to make Restaud furiously jealous of him."
Maxime burst out laughing, and went out, followed by the
Countess, who stood at the window to watch him into his carriage;
he shook his whip, and made his horse prance. She only returned
when the great gate had been closed after him.
"What do you think, dear?" cried the Count, her husband, "this
gentleman's family estate is not far from Verteuil, on the
Charente; his great-uncle and my grandfather were acquainted."
"Delighted to find that we have acquaintances in common," said
the Countess, with a preoccupied manner.
Father Goriot |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Aeneid by Virgil: "Against our coast appears a spacious land,
Which once the fierce Lycurgus did command,
(Thracia the name- the people bold in war;
Vast are their fields, and tillage is their care,)
A hospitable realm while Fate was kind,
With Troy in friendship and religion join'd.
I land; with luckless omens then adore
Their gods, and draw a line along the shore;
I lay the deep foundations of a wall,
And Aenos, nam'd from me, the city call.
To Dionaean Venus vows are paid,
Aeneid |
