| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Stammered In his speech a little,
Speaking words yet unfamiliar:
"Peace be with you, Hiawatha,
Peace be with you and your people,
Peace of prayer, and peace of pardon,
Peace of Christ, and joy of Mary!"
Then the generous Hiawatha
Led the strangers to his wigwam,
Seated them on skins of bison,
Seated them on skins of ermine,
And the careful old Nokomis
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: power of drawing characters, are wanting in them. But the Platonic
dialogue is a drama as well as a dialogue, of which Socrates is the central
figure, and there are lesser performers as well:--the insolence of
Thrasymachus, the anger of Callicles and Anytus, the patronizing style of
Protagoras, the self-consciousness of Prodicus and Hippias, are all part of
the entertainment. To reproduce this living image the same sort of effort
is required as in translating poetry. The language, too, is of a finer
quality; the mere prose English is slow in lending itself to the form of
question and answer, and so the ease of conversation is lost, and at the
same time the dialectical precision with which the steps of the argument
are drawn out is apt to be impaired.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James: "But Chillon here, is very well worth seeing."
"Well, if Daisy feels up to it--" said Mrs. Miller, in a tone
impregnated with a sense of the magnitude of the enterprise.
"It seems as if there was nothing she wouldn't undertake."
"Oh, I think she'll enjoy it!" Winterbourne declared.
And he desired more and more to make it a certainty that he was
to have the privilege of a tete-a-tete with the young lady,
who was still strolling along in front of them, softly vocalizing.
"You are not disposed, madam," he inquired, "to undertake it yourself?"
Daisy's mother looked at him an instant askance, and then walked
forward in silence. Then--"I guess she had better go alone,"
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