| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: dose; and she had heard before of the capricious and incalculable
action of the drug. Her dread of returning to a sleepless night
was so great that she lingered on, hoping that excessive
weariness would reinforce the waning power of the chloral.
Night had now closed in, and the roar of traffic in Forty-second
Street was dying out. As complete darkness fell on the square the
lingering occupants of the benches rose and dispersed; but now
and then a stray figure, hurrying homeward, struck across the
path where Lily sat, looming black for a moment in the white
circle of electric light. One or two of these passers-by
slackened their pace to glance curiously at her lonely figure;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: confusing our notions of Greek rhythm, that we shall never, to the end
of time, be able to guess what any Greek verse, saving the old Homeric
Hexameter, sounded like. After a while, too, the pedants, according to
their wont, began quarrelling about their accents and their recessions.
Moreover, there was a rival school at Pergamus where the fame of Crates
all but equalled the Egyptian fame of Aristarchus. Insolent! What
right had an Asiatic to know anything? So Aristarchus flew furiously on
Crates, being a man of plain common sense, who felt a correct reading a
far more important thing than any of Crates's illustrations, aesthetic,
historical, or mythological; a preference not yet quite extinct, in one,
at least, of our Universities. "Sir," said a clever Cambridge Tutor to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: with a little pepper or salt, will be very good boiled on the
fourth day, especially in winter.
I have reckoned upon a medium, that a child just born will weigh
12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, encreaseth
to 28 pounds.
I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very
proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of
the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.
Infant's flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more
plentiful in March, and a little before and after; for we are
told by a grave author, an eminent French physician, that fish
A Modest Proposal |
