| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: Sertularia are Campanularia syringa (Pl. I. Fig. 9); and here is a
tiny plant of Cellularia ciliata (Pl. I. Fig. 8). Look at it
through the field-glass; for it is truly wonderful. Each polype
cell is edged with whip-like spines, and on the back of some of
them is - what is it, but a live vulture's head, snapping and
snapping - what for?
Nay, reader, I am here to show you what can be seen: but as for
telling you what can be known, much more what cannot, I decline;
and refer you to Johnson's "Zoophytes," wherein you will find that
several species of polypes carry these same birds' heads: but
whether they be parts of the polype, and of what use they are, no
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw: and whats the result? Youve got yourself thoroughly disliked in the
office; and youre getting yourself thoroughly disliked here, all
through your bad manners and your conceit, and the damned impudence
you think clever.
BENTLEY. _[deeply wounded and trying hard to control himself]_ Thats
enough, thank you. You dont suppose, I hope, that I should have come
down if I had known that that was how you felt about me. _[He makes
for the vestibule door]._
JOHNNY. _[collaring him]._ No: you dont run away. I'm going to
have this out with you. Sit down: d'y' hear? _[Bentley attempts to
go with dignity. Johnny slings him into a chair at the writing table,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: freedom, grace, simplicity, stateliness, weight, precision; or the best
part of him will be lost to the English reader. It should read as an
original work, and should also be the most faithful transcript which can be
made of the language from which the translation is taken, consistently with
the first requirement of all, that it be English. Further, the translation
being English, it should also be perfectly intelligible in itself without
reference to the Greek, the English being really the more lucid and exact
of the two languages. In some respects it may be maintained that ordinary
English writing, such as the newspaper article, is superior to Plato: at
any rate it is couched in language which is very rarely obscure. On the
other hand, the greatest writers of Greece, Thucydides, Plato, Aeschylus,
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