| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: at a man that was so useful that folks would pay him a million
dollars for existing,' and Perce gave him the once-over and
come right back, `Have, eh?' he says. `Well,' he says, `I've
been looking for a man so useful sweeping floors that I could
pay him four dollars a day. Want the job, my friend?' Ha,
ha, ha! Say, you know how lippy Bjornstam is? Well for
once he didn't have a thing to say. He tried to get fresh,
and tell what a rotten town this is, and Perce come right
back at him, `If you don't like this country, you better get
out of it and go back to Germany, where you belong!' Say,
maybe us fellows didn't give Bjornstam the horse-laugh though!
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: spelling, he will often show a tenderness for the flat A; and
that where he is running a particular consonant, he will not
improbably rejoice to write it down even when it is mute or
bears a different value.
Here, then, we have a fresh pattern - a pattern, to speak
grossly, of letters - which makes the fourth preoccupation of
the prose writer, and the fifth of the versifier. At times
it is very delicate and hard to perceive, and then perhaps
most excellent and winning (I say perhaps); but at times
again the elements of this literal melody stand more boldly
forward and usurp the ear. It becomes, therefore, somewhat a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: her over the sea, the king was quite beside himself with grief
and rage. Although it was now twilight, and fast growing dark,
he bade them set out instantly in search of her.
"Never shall you see my face again," he cried, "unless you
bring me back my little Europa, to gladden me with her smiles
and her pretty ways. Begone, and enter my presence no more,
till you come leading her by the hand."
As King Agenor said this, his eyes flashed fire (for he was a
very passionate king), and he looked so terribly angry that the
poor boys did not even venture to ask for their suppers, but
slunk away out of the palace, and only paused on the steps a
Tanglewood Tales |
