| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare: From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing,
Save the eagle, feather'd king:
Keep the obsequy so strict.
Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-defying swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.
And thou, treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender mak'st
With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st,
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: pronunciation of a word (c) the necessity of finding new expressions for
new classes or processes of things. We are told that changes of sound take
place by innumerable gradations until a whole tribe or community or society
find themselves acquiescing in a new pronunciation or use of language. Yet
no one observes the change, or is at all aware that in the course of a
lifetime he and his contemporaries have appreciably varied their intonation
or use of words. On the other hand, the necessities of language seem to
require that the intermediate sounds or meanings of words should quickly
become fixed or set and not continue in a state of transition. The process
of settling down is aided by the organs of speech and by the use of writing
and printing. (2) The meaning of words varies because ideas vary or the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: something infinitely precious by mingling in the conflicts of
life. The discussion wandered, and was punctuated with bread and
butter. Capes was inclined to support Miss Klegg until Miss
Garvice cornered him by quoting him against himself, and citing a
recent paper in the Nineteenth Century, in which, following
Atkinson, he had made a vigorous and damaging attack on Lester
Ward's case for the primitive matriarchate and the predominant
importance of the female throughout the animal kingdom.
Ann Veronica was not aware of this literary side of her teacher;
she had a little tinge of annoyance at Miss Garvice's advantage.
Afterwards she hunted up the article in question, and it seemed
|
