| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling: They mak' Him in the Broomielaw, o' Glasgie cold an' dirt,
A jealous, pridefu' fetich, lad, that's only strong to hurt,
Ye'll not go back to Him again an' kiss His red-hot rod,
But come wi' Us" (Now, who were ~They~?) "an' know the Leevin' God,
That does not kipper souls for sport or break a life in jest,
But swells the ripenin' cocoanuts an' ripes the woman's breast."
An' there it stopped: cut off: no more; that quiet, certain voice --
For me, six months o' twenty-four, to leave or take at choice.
'Twas on me like a thunderclap -- it racked me through an' through --
Temptation past the show o' speech, unnameable an' new --
The Sin against the Holy Ghost? . . . An' under all, our screw.
Verses 1889-1896 |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: gender to objects of sense and abstract ideas as well as to men and animals
no doubt lends a nameless grace to style which we have a difficulty in
appreciating, and the possible variety in the order of words gives more
flexibility and also a kind of dignity to the period. Of the comparative
effect of accent and quantity and of the relation between them in ancient
and modern languages we are not able to judge.
Another quality in which modern are superior to ancient languages is
freedom from tautology. No English style is thought tolerable in which,
except for the sake of emphasis, the same words are repeated at short
intervals. Of course the length of the interval must depend on the
character of the word. Striking words and expressions cannot be allowed to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: generals are amateurs and improvisers.[30] I do not at all suppose
that you are one of that sort. I believe you could give as clear an
account of your schooling in strategy as you could in the matter of
wrestling. No doubt you have got at first hand many of your father's
"rules for generalship," which you carefully preserve, besides having
collected many others from every quarter whence it was possible to
pick up any knowledge which would be of use to a future general.
Again, I feel sure you are deeply concerned to escape even unconscious
ignorance of anything which will be serviceable to you in so high an
office; and if you detect in yourself any ignorance, you turn to those
who have knowledge in these matters (sparing neither gifts nor
The Memorabilia |
