| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: with tight clothes and rows of buttons. I'll be a groom or a gardener."
It was quickly settled that as soon as Jerry was well enough
they should remove to the country, and that the cab and horses
should be sold as soon as possible.
This was heavy news for me, for I was not young now, and could not look
for any improvement in my condition. Since I left Birtwick I had never been
so happy as with my dear master Jerry; but three years of cab work,
even under the best conditions, will tell on one's strength,
and I felt that I was not the horse that I had been.
Grant said at once that he would take Hotspur, and there were
men on the stand who would have bought me; but Jerry said I should not go
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An International Episode by Henry James: face to face with the friend of their friend in London.
His office was composed of several different rooms, and they
waited very silently in one of them after they had sent in
their letter and their cards. The letter was not one which it
would take Mr. Westgate very long to read, but he came out
to speak to them more instantly than they could have expected;
he had evidently jumped up from his work. He was a tall,
lean personage and was dressed all in fresh white linen;
he had a thin, sharp, familiar face, with an expression that was
at one and the same time sociable and businesslike, a quick,
intelligent eye, and a large brown mustache, which concealed
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: first "o" in "borogoves" is pronounced like the "o" in "borrow." I have heard
people try to give it the sound of the "o" in "worry. Such is Human
Perversity.
This also seems a fitting occasion to notice the other hard works in that
poem. Humpty-Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a
portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all.
For instance, take the two words "fuming" and "furious." Make up your
mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say
first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so
little towards "fuming," you will say "fuming-furious;" if they turn, by even
a hair's breadth, towards "furious," you will say "furious-fuming;" but if you
The Hunting of the Snark |
