| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: STRANGER: I mean that words like 'walks,' 'runs,' 'sleeps,' or any other
words which denote action, however many of them you string together, do not
make discourse.
THEAETETUS: How can they?
STRANGER: Or, again, when you say 'lion,' 'stag,' 'horse,' or any other
words which denote agents--neither in this way of stringing words together
do you attain to discourse; for there is no expression of action or
inaction, or of the existence of existence or non-existence indicated by
the sounds, until verbs are mingled with nouns; then the words fit, and the
smallest combination of them forms language, and is the simplest and least
form of discourse.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: shook me off with hot impatience. He leaped forward with the
quickness of lightning, eluding my frantic grasp, and dashed
straight into the circle of blazing light!
I followed, but too late. At the edge of the lake he stopped,
and, stretching forth his arms toward the dancer on the column, he
cried out in a voice that made the cavern ring:
"Desiree! Desiree! Desiree!"
Chapter IX.
BEFORE THE COURT.
I expected I know not what result from Harry's hysterical
rashness: confusion, pandemonium, instant death; but none of these
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Marie by H. Rider Haggard: customary in old days, this Bible had sundry fly-leaves sewn up with it
for the purpose of the recording of events important to its owner.
The first entries were made by the original Henri Marais, and record how
he and his compatriots were driven from France, his father having lost
his life in the religious persecutions. After this comes a long list of
births, marriages and deaths continued from generation to generation,
and amongst them a few notes telling of such matters as the change of
the dwelling-places of the family, always in French. Towards the end of
the list appears the entry of the birth of the Henri Marais whom I knew,
alas! too well, and of his only sister. Then is written his marriage to
Marie Labuschagne, also, be it noted, of the Huguenot stock. In the
Marie |
