| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry: are wisest. They are the magi.
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of THE GIFT OF THE MAGI.
The Gift of the Magi |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: the bell, said with a smile, in English, that he was afraid Newman
would be kept waiting; the servants were scattered, he himself
had been ringing, he didn't know what the deuce was in them.
He was a young man, his English was excellent, and his smile
very frank. Newman pronounced the name of Madame de Cintre.
"I think," said the young man, "that my sister is visible.
Come in, and if you will give me your card I will carry it
to her myself."
Newman had been accompanied on his present errand by a slight sentiment,
I will not say of defiance--a readiness for aggression or defense,
as they might prove needful--but of reflection, good-humored suspicion.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: to the Athenians even in their own territory unless they had the
Lacedaemonians and the rest of the Peloponnesians to help them, do
nowadays threaten to make an incursion into Attica single-handed; and
the Athenians, who formerly, if they had to deal with the Boeotians[7]
only, made havoc of their territory, are now afraid the Boeotians may
some day harry Attica.
[6] Lebadeia, 447 B.C.; Delium, 424 B.C. For Tolmides and Hippocrates
see Thuc. i. 113; iv. 100 foll.; Grote, "H. G." v. 471; vi. 533.
[7] Reading {ote B. monoi}, al. {ou monoi}, "when the Boeotians were
not unaided."
To which Socrates: Yes, I perceive that this is so, but it seems to me
The Memorabilia |
