| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: Panchita obeyed and walked slowly toward her home, saying nothing. For
some distance she kept her head turned and her large eyes fixed
intrepidly upon Dry Valley's. At her gate she stood for a moment
looking back at him, then ran suddenly and swiftly into the house.
Old Antonia was building a fire in the kitchen stove. Dry Valley
stopped at the door and laughed harshly.
"I'm a pretty looking old rhinoceros to be gettin' stuck on a kid,
ain't I, 'Tonia?" said he.
"Not verree good thing," agreed Antonia, sagely, "for too much old man
to likee /muchacha/."
"You bet it ain't," said Dry Valley, grimly. "It's dum foolishness;
Heart of the West |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: ever made any provision for your servants, in case of your death?"
"No," said St. Clare, as he read on.
"Then all your indulgence to them may prove a great cruelty,
by and by."
St. Clare had often thought the same thing himself; but he
answered, negligently.
"Well, I mean to make a provision, by and by."
"When?" said Miss Ophelia.
"O, one of these days."
"What if you should die first?"
"Cousin, what's the matter?" said St. Clare, laying down his
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: have no difficulty in ascertaining how the sounds and meanings of words
were in time parted off or differentiated. (1) The chief causes which
regulate the variations of sound are (a) double or differing analogies,
which lead sometimes to one form, sometimes to another (b) euphony, by
which is meant chiefly the greater pleasure to the ear and the greater
facility to the organs of speech which is given by a new formation or
pronunciation of a word (c) the necessity of finding new expressions for
new classes or processes of things. We are told that changes of sound take
place by innumerable gradations until a whole tribe or community or society
find themselves acquiescing in a new pronunciation or use of language. Yet
no one observes the change, or is at all aware that in the course of a
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