| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: curious means of occasional transport,--a subject which has hardly ever
been properly experimentised on; if we bear in mind how often a species may
have ranged continuously over a wide area, and then have become extinct in
the intermediate tracts, I think the difficulties in believing that all the
individuals of the same species, wherever located, have descended from the
same parents, are not insuperable. And we are led to this conclusion,
which has been arrived at by many naturalists under the designation of
single centres of creation, by some general considerations, more especially
from the importance of barriers and from the analogical distribution of
sub-genera, genera, and families.
With respect to the distinct species of the same genus, which on my theory
On the Origin of Species |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: side of the hill by me, ran the other way, that is, due east; and
the country appeared so fresh, so green, so flourishing, everything
being in a constant verdure or flourish of spring that it looked
like a planted garden. I descended a little on the side of that
delicious vale, surveying it with a secret kind of pleasure, though
mixed with my other afflicting thoughts, to think that this was all
my own; that I was king and lord of all this country indefensibly,
and had a right of possession; and if I could convey it, I might
have it in inheritance as completely as any lord of a manor in
England. I saw here abundance of cocoa trees, orange, and lemon,
and citron trees; but all wild, and very few bearing any fruit, at
Robinson Crusoe |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: "He'll wake up about noon to-morrow in a dive, without a cent," said
Barker. "Then he'll come back on a freight and begin over again."
At the Denver station Lin McLean passed through the shoutings and
omnibuses, and came to the beginning of Seventeenth Street, where is the
first saloon. A customer was ordering Hot Scotch; and because he liked
the smell and had not thought of the mixture for a number of years, Lin
took Hot Scotch. Coming out upon the pavement, he looked across and saw a
saloon opposite with brighter globes and windows more prosperous. That
should have been his choice; lemon peel would undoubtedly be fresher over
there; and over he went at once, to begin the whole thing properly. In
such frozen weather no drink could be more timely, and he sat, to enjoy
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