| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: on the boundary between two fields, and desperately tossing
about under the pressure of the wind which beat it all to one
side and whistled through it. The sight of that wormwood
tormented by the pitiless wind made Vasili Andreevich shudder,
he knew not why, and he hurriedly began urging the horse on,
not noticing that when riding up to the wormwood he had quite
changed his direction and was now heading the opposite way,
though still imagining that he was riding towards where the
hut should be. But the horse kept making towards the right,
and Vasili Andreevich kept guiding it to the left.
Again something dark appeared in front of him. Again he
Master and Man |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: he never dreamed that Sea Cow was anything of a swimmer. They
headed for a cliff by the shore--a cliff that ran down into deep
water, and plunged into a dark hole at the foot of it, twenty
fathoms under the sea. It was a long, long swim, and Kotick badly
wanted fresh air before he was out of the dark tunnel they led him
through.
"My wig!" he said, when he rose, gasping and puffing, into
open water at the farther end. "It was a long dive, but it was
worth it."
The sea cows had separated and were browsing lazily along the
edges of the finest beaches that Kotick had ever seen. There were
The Jungle Book |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: in such copy would be discharged from the staff of a daily paper.
Scott has forgotten to prepare the reader for the presence of the
"damsel"; he has forgotten to mention the spring and its relation
to the ruin; and now, face to face with his omission, instead of
trying back and starting fair, crams all this matter, tail
foremost, into a single shambling sentence. It is not merely bad
English, or bad style; it is abominably bad narrative besides.
Certainly the contrast is remarkable; and it is one that throws a
strong light upon the subject of this paper. For here we have a
man of the finest creative instinct touching with perfect certainty
and charm the romantic junctures of his story; and we find him
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