| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain: So it all come back to me just the way it was that day;
and it made me mournful to think how pleasant it was up
to then, and how miserable ever since.
LEM BEEBE, sworn, said--"I was a-coming along, that day,
second of September, and Jim Lane was with me, and it was
towards sundown, and we heard loud talk, like quarrelling,
and we was very close, only the hazel bushes between
(that's along the fence); and we heard a voice say,
'I've told you more'n once I'd kill you,' and knowed
it was this prisoner's voice; and then we see a club
come up above the bushes and down out of sight again.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: tyrannies was exacting punctuality at meals, and, like several other
things, I respected it. There are always some concessions that
should be made in return for faithful service.
So, as my dinner hour of seven was long past, McKnight and I went
to a little restaurant down town where they have a very decent way
of fixing chicken a la King. Hotchkiss had departed, economically
bent, for a small hotel where he lived on the American plan.
"I want to think some things over," he said in response to my
invitation to dinner, "and, anyhow, there's no use dining out when
I pay the same, dinner or no dinner, where I am stopping."
The day had been hot, and the first floor dining-room was sultry in
The Man in Lower Ten |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: another contrary to the appointment of the legislator?
YOUNG SOCRATES: No; his office is such as you describe.
STRANGER: Then the inference is that the power of the judge is not royal,
but only the power of a guardian of the law which ministers to the royal
power?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: The review of all these sciences shows that none of them is
political or royal. For the truly royal ought not itself to act, but to
rule over those who are able to act; the king ought to know what is and
what is not a fitting opportunity for taking the initiative in matters of
the greatest importance, whilst others should execute his orders.
Statesman |
