| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon: descriptions both as to how you make him kindly disposed towards
yourself; and how, again, you make him careful, capable of rule, and
upright. But at that point you made the statement that, in order to
apply this diligence to tillage rightly, the careful husbandman must
further learn what are the different things he has to do, and not
alone what things he has to do, but how and when to do them. These are
the topics which, in my opinion, have hitherto been somewhat lightly
handled in the argument. Let me make my meaning clearer by an
instance: it is as if you were to tell me that, in order to be able to
take down a speech in writing,[7] or to read a written statement, a
man must know his letters. Of course, if not stone deaf, I must have
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: now again the race with daybreak began. Glossie and Flossie had no
mind to be rebuked a second time for tardiness, so they fled with a
swiftness that enabled them to pass the gale on which the Frost King
rode, and soon brought them to the Laughing Valley.
It is true when Claus released his steeds from their harness the
eastern sky was streaked with gray, but Glossie and Flossie were deep
in the Forest before day fairly broke.
Claus was so wearied with his night's work that he threw himself upon
his bed and fell into a deep slumber, and while he slept the Christmas
sun appeared in the sky and shone upon hundreds of happy homes where
the sound of childish laughter proclaimed that Santa Claus had made
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: bright and glassy with a clean, colourless light. It was while
we were all ashore on the islet that a steamer was picked up by
the telescope, a black speck like an insect posed on the hard
edge of the offing. She emerged rapidly to her water-line and
came on steadily, a slim hull with a long streak of smoke
slanting away from the rising sun. We embarked in a hurry, and
headed the boat out for our prey, but we hardly moved three miles
an hour.
She was a big, high-class cargo-steamer of a type that is to be
met on the sea no more, black hull, with low, white super-
structures, powerfully rigged with three masts and a lot of yards
Some Reminiscences |
