| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: The little girl upbraided him, "Youse allus fightin', Jimmie,
an' yeh knows it puts mudder out when yehs come home half dead,
an' it's like we'll all get a poundin'."
She began to weep. The babe threw back his head and roared at
his prospects.
"Ah, what deh hell!" cried Jimmie. Shut up er I'll smack yer mout'. See?"
As his sister continued her lamentations, he suddenly swore
and struck her. The little girl reeled and, recovering herself,
burst into tears and quaveringly cursed him. As she slowly
retreated her brother advanced dealing her cuffs. The father heard
and turned about.
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number
of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of
their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present
deplorable state of the kingdom, a very great additional
grievance; and therefore whoever could find out a fair, cheap and
easy method of making these children sound and useful members of
the common-wealth, would deserve so well of the publick, as to
have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.
But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only
for the children of professed beggars: it is of a much greater
extent, and shall take in the whole number of infants at a
A Modest Proposal |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: among neighbours as is sufficient to enforce them. And there are many
reasons why a man should prefer his own way of speaking to that of others,
unless by so doing he becomes unintelligible. The struggle for existence
among words is not of that fierce and irresistible kind in which birds,
beasts and fishes devour one another, but of a milder sort, allowing one
usage to be substituted for another, not by force, but by the persuasion,
or rather by the prevailing habit, of a majority. The favourite figure, in
this, as in some other uses of it, has tended rather to obscure than
explain the subject to which it has been applied. Nor in any case can the
struggle for existence be deemed to be the sole or principal cause of
changes in language, but only one among many, and one of which we cannot
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