| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: the ceiling, "if the House of Lords throws out the Budget."
"All the more reason for picking it up," said Neal. "For we can't
do without it."
"Will they go to the bad, or will they rise from the ashes,
aristocrats indeed--if the Liberals come in overwhelmingly?" said
Britten.
"It's we who might decide that," said Crupp, insidiously.
"I agree," said Gane.
"No one can tell," said Thorns. "I doubt if they will get beaten."
It was an odd, fragmentary discussion that night. We were all with
ideas in our minds at once fine and imperfect. We threw out
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: And now you should be as your mother was
When your sweet self was got.
DIANA.
She then was honest.
BERTRAM.
So should you be.
DIANA.
No:
My mother did but duty; such, my lord,
As you owe to your wife.
BERTRAM.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: complex social relations of increasing civilization compelled some
sort of distant recognition. Accordingly, compromises with
objectionable personality were effected by circumlocutions promoted
to a pronoun's office, becoming thus pro-pronouns, as it were.
Very noncommittal expressions they are, most of them, such as:
"the augustness," meaning you; "that honorable side," or
"that corner," denoting some third person, the exact term employed
in any given instance scrupulously betokening the relative respect
in which the individual spoken of is held; while with a candor, an
indefiniteness, or a humility worthy so polite a people, the I is
known as "selfishness," or "a certain person," or "the clumsy one."
|
