| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: [38] Co-operators.
[39] Reading {ekphoresousi}, after Cobet.
This then is a statement, as far as I can make it clear, of the method
by which, with the proper state organisation, every Athenian may be
supplied with ample maintenance at the public expense. Possibly some
of you may be calculating that the capital[40] requisite will be
enormous. They may doubt if a sufficient sum will ever be subscribed
to meet all the needs. All I can say is, even so, do not dispond. It
is not as if it were necessary that every feature of the scheme should
be carried out at once, or else there is to be no advantage in it at
all. On the contrary, whatever number of houses are erected, or ships
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: Master; and Necile, who had eagerly listened to every word, echoed in
a whisper: "I, too, am glad!"
"And this very night," continued Ak, "as I came to the edge of Burzee I
heard a feeble cry, which I judged came from a human infant. I looked
about me and found, close to the forest, a helpless babe, lying quite
naked upon the grasses and wailing piteously. Not far away, screened
by the forest, crouched Shiegra, the lioness, intent upon devouring
the infant for her evening meal."
"And what did you do, Ak?" asked the Queen, breathlessly.
"Not much, being in a hurry to greet my nymphs. But I commanded
Shiegra to lie close to the babe, and to give it her milk to quiet its
 The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: brutal Truth, naked to the bone!
Yet there came to her a little thrill of consolation, caused by
the words of the tender falsehood; for that which she had
discerned by day could not explain to her that which she saw
almost nightly in her slumber. The face, the voice, the form
of her loving mother still lived somewhere,--could not have
utterly passed away; since the sweet presence came to her in
dreams, bending and smiling over her, caressing her, speaking to
her,--sometimes gently chiding, but always chiding with a kiss.
And then the child would laugh in her sleep, and prattle in
Creole,--talking to the luminous shadow, telling the dead mother
|