| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: But in our newspapers the compounding-disease lingers
a little to the present day, but with the hyphens left out,
in the German fashion. This is the shape it takes:
instead of saying "Mr. Simmons, clerk of the county and
district courts, was in town yesterday," the new form put
it thus: "Clerk of the County and District Courts Simmons
was in town yesterday." This saves neither time nor ink,
and has an awkward sound besides. One often sees a remark
like this in our papers: "MRS. Assistant District Attorney
Johnson returned to her city residence yesterday for the season."
That is a case of really unjustifiable compounding;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: "Hapless and dearest comrade, you it was who would get a good
dinner ready for me at once and without delay when the Achaeans
were hasting to fight the Trojans; now, therefore, though I have
meat and drink in my tents, yet will I fast for sorrow. Grief
greater than this I could not know, not even though I were to
hear of the death of my father, who is now in Phthia weeping for
the loss of me his son, who am here fighting the Trojans in a
strange land for the accursed sake of Helen, nor yet though I
should hear that my son is no more--he who is being brought up in
Scyros--if indeed Neoptolemus is still living. Till now I made
sure that I alone was to fall here at Troy away from Argos, while
The Iliad |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: "But that costs but twa skarts of a pen," said Lord
Turntippet; "and surely there is nae noble lord that will presume
to say that I, wha hae complied wi' a' compliances, taen all
manner of tests, adjured all that was to be abjured, and sworn a'
that was to be sworn, for these thirty years bye-past, sticking
fast by my duty to the state through good report and bad report,
shouldna hae something now and then to synd my mouth wi' after
sic drouthy wark? Eh?"
"It would be very unreasonable indeed, my lord," replied the
Marquis, "had we either thought that your lordship's drought was
quenchable, or observed anything stick in your throat that
The Bride of Lammermoor |
