| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: happen to misplace an accent, you shall see their eyebrows curl up
like an interrogation mark, and they will ask you what authority you
have for that pronunciation. As if, forsooth, a man could not talk
without book-license! As if he must have a permit from some dusty
lexicon before he can take a good word into his mouth and speak it
out like the people with whom he has lived!
The truth is that the man who is very particular not to commit
himself, in pronunciation or otherwise, and talks as if his remarks
were being taken down in shorthand, and shudders at the thought of
making a mistake, will hardly be able to open your heart or let out
the best that is in his own.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from King Lear by William Shakespeare: It is thy business that I go about.
Therefore great France
My mourning and important tears hath pitied.
No blown ambition doth our arms incite,
But love, dear love, and our ag'd father's right.
Soon may I hear and see him!
Exeunt.
Scene V.
Gloucester's Castle.
Enter Regan and [Oswald the] Steward.
Reg. But are my brother's pow'rs set forth?
King Lear |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker: has roots in the different epochs of our history, and each has its
special crop of legend. The Druid and the Roman are too far off for
matters of detail; but it seems to me the Saxon and the Angles are
near enough to yield material for legendary lore. We find that this
particular place had another name besides Diana's Grove. This was
manifestly of Roman origin, or of Grecian accepted as Roman. The
other is more pregnant of adventure and romance than the Roman name.
In Mercian tongue it was 'The Lair of the White Worm.' This needs a
word of explanation at the beginning.
"In the dawn of the language, the word 'worm' had a somewhat
different meaning from that in use to-day. It was an adaptation of
Lair of the White Worm |
