| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: each have sent up to the sky a dark column of smoke, and
have long remained in fierce action. Two years and three-
quarters afterwards, France, from its centre to the English
Channel, would have been again desolated by an earthquake
and an island permanently upraised in the Mediterranean.
The space, from under which volcanic matter on the 20th
was actually erupted, is 720 miles in one line, and 400 miles
in another line at right angles to the first: hence, in all
probability, a subterranean lake of lava is here stretched out,
of nearly double the area of the Black Sea. From the intimate
and complicated manner in which the elevatory and eruptive
The Voyage of the Beagle |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon: it should shoot upwards to the crest, and be slack[17] along the
curvature; whilst the head should be bony and the jawbone small. In
this way the neck will be well in front of the rider, and the eye will
command what lies before the horse's feet. A horse, moreover, of this
build, however spirited, will be least capable of overmastering the
rider,[18] since it is not by arching but by stretching out his neck
and head that a horse endeavours to assert his power.[19]
[16] Lit. "the thighs below the shoulder-blades" are distinguished
from "the thighs below the tail." They correspond respectively to
our "arms" (i.e. forearms) and "gaskins," and anatomically
speaking = the radius (os brachii) and the tibia.
On Horsemanship |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: observable change came over the features of the mental disorder
of my friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary
occupations were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber
to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. The
pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more
ghastly hue--but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone
out. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no
more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually
characterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I
thought his unceasingly agitated mind was labouring with some
oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the
The Fall of the House of Usher |
