| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: faces, might probably have destroyed the illusion in her
instance, as it has done in many others; but her residence
remained solitary, and her mind without those means of
dissipating her pleasing visions. This solitude was chiefly
owing to the absence of Lady Ashton, who was at this time in
Edinburgh, watching the progress of some state-intrigue; the Lord
Keeper only received society out of policy or ostentation, and
was by nature rather reserved and unsociable; and thus no
cavalier appeared to rival or to obscure the ideal picture of
chivalrous excellence which Lucy had pictured to herself in the
Master of Ravenswood.
The Bride of Lammermoor |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: innocent indecencies. What they regarded as the
merry tale went the continual round and caused no
more embarrassment than it would have caused in the
best English society twelve centuries later. Practical
jokes worthy of the English wits of the first quarter of
the far-off nineteenth century were sprung here and
there and yonder along the line, and compelled the
delightedest applause; and sometimes when a bright
remark was made at one end of the procession and
started on its travels toward the other, you could note
its progress all the way by the sparkling spray of
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: the word "kein" so much that it becomes a clear and complete
German expression.
We do not have to ask about the literal Latin or how we are to
speak German - as these asses do. Rather we must ask the mother
in the home, the children on the street, the common person in the
market about this. We must be guided by their tongue, the manner
of their speech, and do our translating accordingly. Then they
will understand it and recognize that we are speaking German to
them.
For instance, Christ says: Ex abundatia cordis os loquitur. If I
am to follow these asses, they will lay the original before me
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