| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle: subject. We guard our secret very jealously, however, and if it
once became known that we had hydraulic engineers coming to our
little house, it would soon rouse inquiry, and then, if the facts
came out, it would be good-bye to any chance of getting these
fields and carrying out our plans. That is why I have made you
promise me that you will not tell a human being that you are
going to Eyford to-night. I hope that I make it all plain?'
"'I quite follow you,' said I. 'The only point which I could not
quite understand was what use you could make of a hydraulic press
in excavating fuller's-earth, which, as I understand, is dug out
like gravel from a pit.'
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes |
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: changed the sense; both being mono-syllables, neither could
affect the scansion; and it was only by looking back on what
he had already written that the mystery was solved: the
second word contained an open A, and for nearly half a page
he had been riding that vowel to the death.
In practice, I should add, the ear is not always so exacting;
and ordinary writers, in ordinary moments, content themselves
with avoiding what is harsh, and here and there, upon a rare
occasion, buttressing a phrase, or linking two together, with
a patch of assonance or a momentary jingle of alliteration.
To understand how constant is this preoccupation of good
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: Paul would go to the old barn, catch birds, throw stones into the
pond, or pound the trunks of the trees with a stick till they
resounded like drums. Virginia would feed the rabbits and run to pick
the wild flowers in the fields, and her flying legs would disclose her
little embroidered pantalettes. One autumn evening, they struck out
for home through the meadows. The new moon illumined part of the sky
and a mist hovered like a veil over the sinuosities of the river.
Oxen, lying in the pastures, gazed mildly at the passing persons. In
the third field, however, several of them got up and surrounded them.
"Don't be afraid," cried Felicite; and murmuring a sort of lament she
passed her hand over the back of the nearest ox; he turned away and
A Simple Soul |
