| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: against he baited his hook the next time ": but he has been observed,
both by others and myself, to catch more fish than I, or any other body
that has ever gone a-fishing with him, could do, and especially
Salmons. And I have been told lately, by one of his most intimate and
secret friends, that the box in which he put those worms was anointed
with a drop, or two or three, of the oil of ivy-berries, made by
expression or infusion; and told, that by the worms remaining in that
box an hour, or a like time, they had incorporated a kind of smell that
was irresistibly attractive, enough to force any fish within the smell of
them to bite. This I heard not long since from a friend, but have not
tried it; yet I grant it probable, and refer my reader to Sir Francis
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: spot I should find quite a good deal (ziemlichviel) of Edelweiss,
and in another a small echo; it advised me in one valley to take
provisions and dispense with a guide, and in another to take a
guide and dispense with provisions, adding varied information in
regard to beer, which in my case was useless, for I could not touch
it. To go astray under such auspices would be worse than
inexcusable.
Landro we found a very different place from Cortina. Instead of
having a large church and a number of small hotels, it consists
entirely of one large hotel and a very tiny church. It does not
lie in a broad, open basin, but in a narrow valley, shut in closely
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: Sharp, concerning ants:--
"Observation has revealed the most remarkable phenomena in the lives of
these insects. Indeed we can scarcely avoid the conclusion that they have
acquired, in many respects, the art of living together in societies more
perfectly than our own species has; and that they have anticipated us in
the acquisition of some of the industries and arts that greatly facilitate
social life."
I suppose that a few well-informed persons will dispute this plain
statement by a trained specialist. The contemporary man of science is not
apt to become sentimental about ants or bees; but he will not hesitate to
acknowledge that, in regard to social evolution, these insects appear to
Kwaidan |
