| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: them, but legal phrases flow from his pen as part of his
vocabulary and parcel of his thought. Take the word 'purchase'
for instance, which, in ordinary use, means to acquire by giving
value, but applies in law to all legal modes of obtaining
property except by inheritance or descent, and in this peculiar
sense the word occurs five times in Shakespeare's thirty-four
plays, and only in one single instance in the fifty-four plays of
Beaumont and Fletcher. It has been suggested that it was in
attendance upon the courts in London that he picked up his legal
vocabulary. But this supposition not only fails to account for
Shakespeare's peculiar freedom and exactness in the use of that
What is Man? |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: you to say nothing about it. As for you,' he said to Jacques, 'if you
do not amend, the next offence you commit will be your last; I shall
end it without confession.'
"And he sent him to bed. The lad thought he could still get round his
father. He slept. His father watched. When he saw that his son was
soundly asleep, he covered his mouth with tow, blindfolded him
tightly, bound him hand and foot--'He raged, he wept blood,' my mother
heard Cambremer say to the lawyer. The mother threw herself at the
father's feet.
"'He is judged and condemned,' replied Pierre; 'you must now help me
carry him to the boat.'
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: was no doubt about the character being cleared - but where the
cleared man was nobody could tell. Another sensation in society.
And then Miss Moorsom says: 'He will come back to claim me, and
I'll marry him.' But he didn't come back. Between you and me I
don't think he was much wanted - except by Miss Moorsom. I imagine
she's used to have her own way. She grew impatient, and declared
that if she knew where the man was she would go to him. But all
that could be got out of the old butler was that the last envelope
bore the postmark of our beautiful city; and that this was the only
address of 'Master Arthur' that he ever had. That and no more. In
fact the fellow was at his last gasp - with a bad heart. Miss
Within the Tides |
