| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mountains by Stewart Edward White: gorgeous language, some of the best of which I have
used elsewhere, and so will not repeat here.[4]
[4] See especially Jackson Himes in The Blazed Trail;
and TheRawhide.
This vividness manifests itself quite as often in the
selection of the apt word as in the construction of
elaborate phrases with a half-humorous intention. A
cowboy once told me of the arrival of a tramp by
saying, "He SIFTED into camp." Could any verb be
more expressive? Does not it convey exactly the
lazy, careless, out-at-heels shuffling gait of the hobo?
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: as well as I can, without any regard to time or other
circumstances, while I strictly adhere to truth. My only concern
is, that I shall hardly be able to do justice to my master's
arguments and expressions, which must needs suffer by my want of
capacity, as well as by a translation into our barbarous English.
In obedience, therefore, to his honour's commands, I related to
him the Revolution under the Prince of Orange; the long war with
France, entered into by the said prince, and renewed by his
successor, the present queen, wherein the greatest powers of
Christendom were engaged, and which still continued: I computed,
at his request, "that about a million of YAHOOS might have been
Gulliver's Travels |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: obsequiousness came to be known, did Sukey so
much envy as despise me: I was, however, very well
pleased with my success; and having received, from
the concurrent opinion of all mankind, a notion that
to be rich was to be great and happy, I thought I had
obtained my advantages at an easy rate, and resolved
to continue the same passive attention, since I found
myself so powerfully recommended by it to kindness
and esteem.
The desire of advising has a very extensive
prevalence; and since advice cannot be given but to those
|
