| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: Owen has remarked, there is no greater anomaly in nature than a bird that
cannot fly; yet there are several in this state. The logger-headed duck of
South America can only flap along the surface of the water, and has its
wings in nearly the same condition as the domestic Aylesbury duck. As the
larger ground-feeding birds seldom take flight except to escape danger, I
believe that the nearly wingless condition of several birds, which now
inhabit or have lately inhabited several oceanic islands, tenanted by no
beast of prey, has been caused by disuse. The ostrich indeed inhabits
continents and is exposed to danger from which it cannot escape by flight,
but by kicking it can defend itself from enemies, as well as any of the
smaller quadrupeds. We may imagine that the early progenitor of the
On the Origin of Species |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: feeling, for it's a miserable thing to be made a leper of.
It chanced one day towards the end of the month, that I was sitting
in this bay in the edge of the bush, looking east, with a Kanaka.
I had given him a fill of tobacco, and we were making out to talk
as best we could; indeed, he had more English than most.
I asked him if there was no road going eastward.
"One time one road," said he. "Now he dead."
"Nobody he go there?" I asked.
"No good," said he. "Too much devil he stop there."
"Oho!" says I, "got-um plenty devil, that bush?"
"Man devil, woman devil; too much devil," said my friend. "Stop
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: end for him, even for Telemachus, and let him not escape
out of our hands, for methinks that while he lives we shall
never achieve this task of ours. For he himself has
understanding in counsel and wisdom, and the people no
longer show us favour in all things. Nay come, before he
assembles all the Achaeans to the gathering; for methinks
that he will in nowise be slack, but will be exceeding
wroth, and will stand up and speak out among them all, and
tell how we plotted against him sheer destruction but did
not overtake him. Then will they not approve us, when they
hear these evil deeds. Beware then lest they do us a harm,
The Odyssey |
