| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: reason to suppose that English or French will ever be reduced to the low
level of Modern Greek or of Mediaeval Latin. The wide diffusion of great
authors would make such a decline impossible. Nor will modern languages be
easily broken up by amalgamation with each other. The distance between
them is too wide to be spanned, the differences are too great to be
overcome, and the use of printing makes it impossible that one of them
should ever be lost in another.
The structure of the English language differs greatly from that of either
Latin or Greek. In the two latter, especially in Greek, sentences are
joined together by connecting particles. They are distributed on the right
hand and on the left by men, de, alla, kaitoi, kai de and the like, or
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: the walls!"
The Art of Truth
Once upon a time a famous art museum searched the world over for the
best paintings it could find. After a long search, the museum found
a beautiful Old Master painting depicting youths and maidens
frolicking in a wood. The directors were only too glad to pay
millions for this painting because they were captivated by its
beauty and elegance. How delightfully the maidens' hair and mouths
were drawn, how perfectly the hands and arms of the youths, how
life-like the bare feet on the forest floor. But the curator of the
museum was the happiest one of all, for he had now become guardian
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: [FITZSIMMONS obeys.]
[MAUD walks over to the table toward right. She is about to sing,
when she notices FITZSIMMONS' cigarette case, picks it up, and in
an aside reads his name on it and speaks.]
MAUD. "Robert Fitzsimmons." That will prove to my brother that I
have been here.
FITZSIMMONS. Hurry up.
[MAUD hastily puts cigarette case in her pocket and begins to
sing.]
SONG
[During the song FITZSIMMONS turns his head slowly and looks at
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