| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon: but if the wind be mild with gleams of sunshine, they will not last
long, because the snow is quickly thawed. When it snows steadily and
without intermission there is nothing to be done; the tracks will be
covered up. Nor, again, if there be a strong wind blowing, which will
whirl and drift the snow about and obliterate the tracks. It will not
do to take the hounds into the field in that case;[1] since owing to
excessive frost the snow will blister[2] the feet and noses of the
dogs and destroy the hare's scent. Then is the time for the sportsman
to take the haye nets and set off with a comrade up to the hills, and
leave the cultivated lands behind; and when he has got upon the tracks
to follow up the clue. If the tracks are much involved, and he follows
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: instead he watched him, and presently there dawned upon him
the conviction that this was Tarzan of the Apes, whose notice
he had seen posted upon the cabin door that morning.
If so he must speak English.
Again Clayton attempted speech with the ape-man; but the
replies, now vocal, were in a strange tongue, which resembled
the chattering of monkeys mingled with the growling of some
wild beast.
No, this could not be Tarzan of the Apes, for it was very
evident that he was an utter stranger to English.
When Tarzan had completed his repast he rose and, pointing
Tarzan of the Apes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: methods and stages of development characterizing the infancy of
races.) In the work of these primitive scribes all the punctuation is
found, by the modern investigator with his optical instruments and
chemical tests, to have been inserted by the writers' ingenious and
serviceable collaborator, the common house-fly -- _Musca maledicta_.
In transcribing these ancient MSS, for the purpose of either making
the work their own or preserving what they naturally regard as divine
revelations, later writers reverently and accurately copy whatever
marks they find upon the papyrus or parchment, to the unspeakable
enhancement of the lucidity of the thought and value of the work.
Writers contemporary with the copyists naturally avail themselves of
The Devil's Dictionary |
