| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: by several able observers; it has often been found that a shell
very common in a tertiary stratum is now most rare, and has
even long been thought extinct. If then, as appears probable,
species first become rare and then extinct -- if the too rapid
increase of every species, even the most favoured, is steadily
checked, as we must admit, though how and when it is hard to
say -- and if we see, without the smallest surprise, though
unable to assign the precise reason, one species abundant
and another closely allied species rare in the same district --
why should we feel such great astonishment at the rarity being
carried one step further to extinction? An action going on,
The Voyage of the Beagle |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: Afterwards, as I sat up in bed and sipped my morning tea, I
found myself trying to account for the flavour of reality that
perplexed me in his impossible reminiscences, by supposing they did
in some way suggest, present, convey--I hardly know which word to
use--experiences it was otherwise impossible to tell.
Well, I don't resort to that explanation now. I have got over
my intervening doubts. I believe now, as I believed at the moment
of telling, that Wallace did to the very best of his ability strip
the truth of his secret for me. But whether he himself saw, or only
thought he saw, whether he himself was the possessor of an
inestimable privilege, or the victim of a fantastic dream, I cannot
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll: When, bathed in Dawn of living red,
Majestic frowned the mountain head,
"Tell me my fault," was all he said.
When, at high Noon, the blazing sky
Scorched in his head each haggard eye,
Then keenest rose his weary cry.
And when at Eve the unpitying sun
Smiled grimly on the solemn fun,
"Alack," he sighed, "what HAVE I done?"
But saddest, darkest was the sight,
When the cold grasp of leaden Night
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