| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: of composition, is omitted in the Greek, but is necessary to make the
English clear and consecutive.
It is difficult to harmonize all these conflicting elements. In a
translation of Plato what may be termed the interests of the Greek and
English are often at war with one another. In framing the English sentence
we are insensibly diverted from the exact meaning of the Greek; when we
return to the Greek we are apt to cramp and overlay the English. We
substitute, we compromise, we give and take, we add a little here and leave
out a little there. The translator may sometimes be allowed to sacrifice
minute accuracy for the sake of clearness and sense. But he is not
therefore at liberty to omit words and turns of expression which the
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: instincts, and do what work they could. If their presence proved useful to
the species which had seized them--if it were more advantageous to this
species to capture workers than to procreate them--the habit of collecting
pupae originally for food might by natural selection be strengthened and
rendered permanent for the very different purpose of raising slaves. When
the instinct was once acquired, if carried out to a much less extent even
than in our British F. sanguinea, which, as we have seen, is less aided by
its slaves than the same species in Switzerland, I can see no difficulty in
natural selection increasing and modifying the instinct--always supposing
each modification to be of use to the species--until an ant was formed as
abjectly dependent on its slaves as is the Formica rufescens.
On the Origin of Species |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: all over the world. I can make a profit on this purchase, just as
it stands; but there is a way, if I can get your approval, whereby I
can make every one of these leaden twenty-dollar pieces worth its
face in gold, and perhaps more. Grant me that approval, and I will
give part of my gains to your Mr. Richards, whose invulnerable
probity you have so justly and so cordially recognised tonight; his
share shall be ten thousand dollars, and I will hand him the money
to-morrow. [Great applause from the house. But the "invulnerable
probity" made the Richardses blush prettily; however, it went for
modesty, and did no harm.] If you will pass my proposition by a
good majority--I would like a two-thirds vote--I will regard that as
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
