| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: will find the owner, Mr. Dodd, below. Mind the fresh paint on
the house."
Havens stepped along the alley-way, and descended the ladder
into the main cabin.
"Mr. Dodd, I believe," said he, addressing a smallish, bearded
gentleman, who sat writing at the table. "Why," he cried, "it
isn't Loudon Dodd?"
"Myself, my dear fellow," replied Mr. Dodd, springing to his
feet with companionable alacrity. "I had a half-hope it might
be you, when I found your name on the papers. Well, there's no
change in you; still the same placid, fresh-looking Britisher."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: merit, be ignorant of the precepts of beauty when the time comes
for her to weave a tent for her offspring? As yet, what I have
seen of her work is but an unsightly bundle. Is that all she can
do?
I look for better things if circumstances favour her. Toiling in
the midst of a dense thicket, among a tangle of dead leaves and
twigs, she may well produce a very inaccurate piece of work; but
compel her to labour when free from all impediment: she will then-
-I am convinced of it beforehand--apply her talents without
constraint and show herself an adept in the building of graceful
nests.
The Life of the Spider |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: [48] Or, "do oftenest issue from treacherous make-believe of warmest
friendship." Cf. Grote, "H. G." xi. 288; "Hell." VI. iv. 36.
II
To these arguments Simonides replied: Yes, but the topics you have
named are to my thinking trifles; drops, as it were, in the wide
ocean. How many men, I wonder, have I seen myself, men in the deepest
sense,[1] true men, who choose to fare but ill in respect of meats and
drinks and delicacies; ay, and what is more, they voluntarily abstain
from sexual pleasures. No! it is in quite a different sphere, which I
will name at once, that you so far transcend us private citizens.[2]
It is in your vast designs, your swift achievements; it is in the
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