| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Riverman by Stewart Edward White: were flushed over this declivity by opening the gate, behind which a
head of water had been accumulated. Now, however, the efficiency of
the gate had been destroyed. Orde early discovered that he was
likely to have trouble in preventing the logs rushing through the
chute from grounding into a bad jam on the rapids below.
For a time the jam crew succeeded in keeping the "wings" clear. In
the centre of the stream, however, a small jam formed, like a pier.
Along the banks logs grounded, and were rolled over by their own
momentum into places so shallow as to discourage any hope of
refloating them unless by main strength. As the sluicing of the
nine or ten million feet that constituted this particular drive went
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Summer by Edith Wharton: Half way down the street she stopped at a weak-hinged
gate. Passing through it, she walked down a brick path
to a queer little brick temple with white wooden
columns supporting a pediment on which was inscribed in
tarnished gold letters: "The Honorius Hatchard Memorial
Library, 1832."
Honorius Hatchard had been old Miss Hatchard's great-
uncle; though she would undoubtedly have reversed the
phrase, and put forward, as her only claim to
distinction, the fact that she was his great-niece.
For Honorius Hatchard, in the early years of the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon: strong, I mean, not one so hale of body as to tower above the stoutest
of the soldiery themselves; no, nor him whose skill to hurl a javelin
or shoot an arrow will outshine the skilfullest; nor yet that mounted
on the fleetest charger it shall be his to bear the brunt of danger
foremost amid the knightliest horsemen, the nimblest of light
infantry. No, not these, but who is able to implant a firm persuasion
in the minds of all his soldiers: follow him they must and will
through fire, if need be, or into the jaws of death.[8]
[8] Or, "through flood and fire or other desperate strait." Cf.
"Anab." II. vi. 8.
Lofty of soul and large of judgment[9] may he be designated justly, at
|