| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: right up to the city itself, giving the Thebans an opportunity of
engaging him in the plain or upon the hills, as they preferred. And
once more, in the ensuing year,[24] he marched against Thebes, and now
surmounting these palisades and entrenchments at Scolus,[25] he
ravaged the remainder of Boeotia.
[22] B.C. 378.
[23] See "Hell." V. iv. 34 foll.; for the site see Breitenbach, ad
loc.
[24] B.C. 377.
[25] See "Hell." V. iv. 47.
Hitherto fortune had smiled in common upon the king himself and upon
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: yet know not how. It is in books more specifically didactic
that we can follow out the effect, and distinguish and weigh
and compare. A book which has been very influential upon me
fell early into my hands, and so may stand first, though I
think its influence was only sensible later on, and perhaps
still keeps growing, for it is a book not easily outlived:
the ESSAIS of Montaigne. That temperate and genial picture
of life is a great gift to place in the hands of persons of
to-day; they will find in these smiling pages a magazine of
heroism and wisdom, all of an antique strain; they will have
their 'linen decencies' and excited orthodoxies fluttered,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery: almost grown up in some ways, but it's not the kind of fun
I expected, Marilla. There's so much to learn and do and think
that there isn't time for big words. Besides, Miss Stacy says
the short ones are much stronger and better. She makes us write
all our essays as simply as possible. It was hard at first.
I was so used to crowding in all the fine big words I could
think of--and I thought of any number of them. But I've got
used to it now and I see it's so much better."
"What has become of your story club? I haven't heard you speak
of it for a long time."
"The story club isn't in existence any longer. We hadn't time
Anne of Green Gables |
