| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: more it done for us.
The place to buy canoes is off of rafts laying up at
shore. But we didn't see no rafts laying up; so we
went along during three hours and more. Well, the
night got gray and ruther thick, which is the next
meanest thing to fog. You can't tell the shape of the
river, and you can't see no distance. It got to be
very late and still, and then along comes a steamboat
up the river. We lit the lantern, and judged she would
see it. Up-stream boats didn't generly come close to
us; they go out and follow the bars and hunt for easy
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: And this one holy institution was found setting at its peak the
black flag of the trader, the "Jolly Roger" of the modern
commercial pirate--"Caveat emptor!" To quote the precise words:
The editors and publishers of the "Living Church" assume no
responsibility for the assertions of advertisers.
And so it threw open its columns to the claims of America's
champion labor-baiter, the late C. W. Post, that his "Grapenuts"
would prevent appendicitis, and obviate the need of operations in
such cases!
And here is the "Christian Endeavor World", organ of one of the
most powerful non-sectarian religious bodies in the country. Some
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: another step in an argument or a narrative or a statement; in reading a
paragraph we silently turn over the page and arrive at some new view or
aspect of the subject. Whereas in Plato we are not always certain where a
sentence begins and ends; and paragraphs are few and far between. The
language is distributed in a different way, and less articulated than in
English. For it was long before the true use of the period was attained by
the classical writers both in poetry or prose; it was (Greek). The balance
of sentences and the introduction of paragraphs at suitable intervals must
not be neglected if the harmony of the English language is to be preserved.
And still a caution has to be added on the other side, that we must avoid
giving it a numerical or mechanical character.
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