| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: correlation of ideas simpler and more natural. The Greek appears to have
had an ear or intelligence for a long and complicated sentence which is
rarely to be found in modern nations; and in order to bring the Greek down
to the level of the modern, we must break up the long sentence into two or
more short ones. Neither is the same precision required in Greek as in
Latin or English, nor in earlier Greek as in later; there was nothing
shocking to the contemporary of Thucydides and Plato in anacolutha and
repetitions. In such cases the genius of the English language requires
that the translation should be more intelligible than the Greek. The want
of more distinctions between the demonstrative pronouns is also greatly
felt. Two genitives dependent on one another, unless familiarised by
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: with him. They found a woman in the front dooryard moaning and
groaning as if in great pain.
"Be brave, madam!" said the Wizard, consolingly. "You won't die just
because you have cut off a finger, you may be sure."
"But I haven't cut off a finger!" she sobbed.
"Then what HAS happened?" asked Dorothy.
"I--I pricked my finger with a needle while I was sewing, and--and the
blood came!" she replied. "And now I'll have blood-poisoning, and the
doctors will cut off my finger, and that will give me a fever and I
shall die!"
"Pshaw!" said Dorothy; "I've pricked my finger many a time,
The Emerald City of Oz |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: stoics in which these children of the amusement arena fought and
lost. They came and went like phantoms, with as little
consciousness of their own best interests as of the great, moving
powers of the world about them. They felt no throes of envy, no
bitterness. They loved and worked and "went their way."
For once the pastor was powerless in the presence of grief. Both
he and Mandy left the room quietly, feeling that Polly wished to
be spared the outburst of tears that a sympathetic word might
bring upon her. They allowed her to remain alone for a time,
then Mandy entered softly with a tender good night and Douglas
followed her cheerily as though nothing at all had happened.
|
