| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: cross the hoop (which we call in this country a shove-net). The
net being fixed at one end of the place, they put in a dog (who was
taught his trade beforehand) at the other end of the place, and he
drives all the fish into the net; so that, only holding the net
still in its place, the man took up two or three and thirty salmon-
peal at the first time.
Of these we took six for our dinner, for which they asked a
shilling (viz., twopence a-piece); and for such fish, not at all
bigger, and not so fresh, I have seen six-and-sixpence each given
at a London fish-market, whither they are sometimes brought from
Chichester by land carriage.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: is also used; and you did not see, as they explained to you, that the term
is employed of two opposite sorts of men, of those who know, and of those
who do not know. There was a similar trick in the second question, when
they asked you whether men learn what they know or what they do not know.
These parts of learning are not serious, and therefore I say that the
gentlemen are not serious, but are only playing with you. For if a man had
all that sort of knowledge that ever was, he would not be at all the wiser;
he would only be able to play with men, tripping them up and oversetting
them with distinctions of words. He would be like a person who pulls away
a stool from some one when he is about to sit down, and then laughs and
makes merry at the sight of his friend overturned and laid on his back.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: even as the jewels upon our harness; no, not so much as the
harness itself. It carries us about. It is true that we would
find difficulty getting along without it; but it has less value
than harness or jewels because it is less difficult to
reproduce." He turned again to the other kaldanes. "Will you
notify Luud that I am here?" he asked.
"Sept has already gone to Luud. He will tell him," replied one.
"Where did you find this rykor with the strange kaldane that
cannot detach itself?"
The girl's captor narrated once more the story of her capture. He
stated facts just as they had occurred, without embellishment,
The Chessmen of Mars |
