| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Chinese Boy and Girl by Isaac Taylor Headland: up, caught it as it came down, half closed his hand and blew into
it, opened his hand and the ball had disappeared.
He picked up another ball, tossed it up, caught it in his
mouth, dropped it into his hand, and it mysteriously disappeared.
The juggler was seated on the ground with a piece of blue cloth
spread out before him, on which were three cups, and five little
red wax balls nearly as large as cranberries.
He continued to toss the wax balls about until they had all
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: He had fallen into talk more intimate than he wished; and while the guest
was uttering something polite about the nobility of missionary work, he
placed him in an easy-chair and sought aguardiente for his immediate
refreshment. Since the year's beginning there had been no guest for him
to bring into his rooms, or to sit beside him in the high seats at table,
set apart for the gente fina.
Such another library was not then in California; and though Gaston
Villere, in leaving Harvard College, had shut Horace and Sophocles for
ever at the earliest instant possible under academic requirements, he
knew the Greek and Latin names that he now saw as well as he knew those
of Shakspere, Dante, Moliere, and Cervantes. These were here also; but it
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: most difficult and to diverge most widely from the English idiom. The
translator will often have to convert the more abstract Greek into the more
concrete English, or vice versa, and he ought not to force upon one
language the character of another. In some cases, where the order is
confused, the expression feeble, the emphasis misplaced, or the sense
somewhat faulty, he will not strive in his rendering to reproduce these
characteristics, but will re-write the passage as his author would have
written it at first, had he not been 'nodding'; and he will not hesitate to
supply anything which, owing to the genius of the language or some accident
of composition, is omitted in the Greek, but is necessary to make the
English clear and consecutive.
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