| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: those killed in the fight were, as I was told, brought on shore
here and buried in the churchyard of this town, as others also were
at Ipswich.
At this town in particular, and so at all the towns on this coast,
from Orfordness to Yarmouth, is the ordinary place where our summer
friends the swallows first land when they come to visit us; and
here they may be said to embark for their return, when they go back
into warmer climates; and as I think the following remark, though
of so trifling a circumstance, may be both instructing as well as
diverting, it may be very proper in this place. The case is this;
I was some years before at this place, at the latter end of the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Cavalry General by Xenophon: form your guerilla bands[2] must be so hardened and inured to the
saddle that they are capable of undergoing all the toils of a
campaign.[3] That a squadron (and I speak of horse and man alike)
should enter these lists in careless, disorderly fashion suggests the
idea of a troop of women stepping into the arena to cope with male
antagonists.
[2] Or, add, "for buccaneers and free-lances you must be."
[3] Lit. "every toil a soldier can encounter."
But reverse the picture. Suppose men and horses to have been taught
and trained to leap trenches and scale dykes, to spring up banks, and
plunge from heights without scathe, to gallop headlong at full speed
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: Soon one of the plates, furnished with a complete slice of mutton and
two potatoes, was handed up to the presiding gentleman, who quietly
replaced the slice on the joint, and the potatoes in the dish.
Their conversation was, if possible, more bewildering than their mode
of dining. It began by the youngest girl suddenly, and without
provocation, addressing her eldest sister.
"Oh, you wicked story-teller!" she said.
I expected a sharp reply from the sister; but, instead of this, she
turned laughingly to her father, and said, in a very loud stage-whisper,
"To be a bride!"
The father, in order to do his part in a conversation that seemed only
Sylvie and Bruno |
