| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: and perhaps likewise by the branchial orifices. This process
is effected by two methods: the air is swallowed, and is then
forced into the cavity of the body, its return being prevented
by a muscular contraction which is externally visible: but
the water enters in a gentle stream through the mouth,
which is kept wide open and motionless; this latter action
must, therefore, depend on suction. The skin about the
abdomen is much looser than that on the back; hence, during
the inflation, the lower surface becomes far more distended
than the upper; and the fish, in consequence, floats
with its back downwards. Cuvier doubts whether the Diodon
The Voyage of the Beagle |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: offer of forty pounds a year, and to quit a workhouse, was not to
be despised, though the condition of shutting my eyes and hardening
my heart was annexed to it.
"I agreed to accompany him; and four years have I been attendant
on many wretches, and"--she lowered her voice,--"the witness of
many enormities. In solitude my mind seemed to recover its force,
and many of the sentiments which I imbibed in the only tolerable
period of my life, returned with their full force. Still what
should induce me to be the champion for suffering humanity?--Who
ever risked any thing for me?--Who ever acknowledged me to be a
fellow-creature?"--
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: I was too much agitated to speak; but, without waiting for an
answer, she turned away her glistening eye and crimson cheek, and
threw up the window and looked out, whether to calm her own,
excited feelings, or to relieve her embarrassment, or only to pluck
that beautiful half-blown Christmas-rose that grew upon the little
shrub without, just peeping from the snow that had hitherto, no
doubt, defended it from the frost, and was now melting away in the
sun. Pluck it, however, she did, and having gently dashed the
glittering powder from its leaves, approached it to her lips and
said:
'This rose is not so fragrant as a summer flower, but it has stood
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
