| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde: most wish to forget? Does life repeat its tragedies? [Tears
letter open and reads it, then sinks down into a chair with a
gesture of anguish.] Oh, how terrible! The same words that twenty
years ago I wrote to her father! and how bitterly I have been
punished for it! No; my punishment, my real punishment is to-
night, is now! [Still seated R.]
[Enter LORD WINDERMERE L.U.E.]
LORD WINDERMERE. Have you said good-night to my wife? [Comes C.]
MRS. ERLYNNE. [Crushing letter in her hand.] Yes.
LORD WINDERMERE. Where is she?
MRS. ERLYNNE. She is very tired. She has gone to bed. She said
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: opening of
the "Weightman Grammar-School" at Dulwich-on-the-Sound, where he
had his
legal residence for purposes of taxation.
This last was perhaps the most carefully planned of all the
Weightman Charities. He desired to win the confidence and
support of
his rural neighbors. It had pleased him much when the local
newspaper
had spoken of him as an ideal citizen and the logical candidate
for
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: writing, tautology begins to appear. In like manner when language is
'contaminated' by philosophy it is apt to become awkward, to stammer and
repeat itself, to lose its flow and freedom. No philosophical writer with
the exception of Plato, who is himself not free from tautology, and perhaps
Bacon, has attained to any high degree of literary excellence.
To poetry the form and polish of language is chiefly to be attributed; and
the most critical period in the history of language is the transition from
verse to prose. At first mankind were contented to express their thoughts
in a set form of words having a kind of rhythm; to which regularity was
given by accent and quantity. But after a time they demanded a greater
degree of freedom, and to those who had all their life been hearing poetry
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