| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: treated in exactly the same manner.' So they put their noses in
the air, and looked very haughty, and were quite delighted when
after some time they saw the little Dwarf scramble up from the
grass, and make his way across the terrace to the palace.
'He should certainly be kept indoors for the rest of his natural
life,' they said. 'Look at his hunched back, and his crooked
legs,' and they began to titter.
But the little Dwarf knew nothing of all this. He liked the birds
and the lizards immensely, and thought that the flowers were the
most marvellous things in the whole world, except of course the
Infanta, but then she had given him the beautiful white rose, and
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: better evidence of this can be required than that the two most experienced
observers who have ever lived, namely, Kolreuter and Gartner, should have
arrived at diametrically opposite conclusions in regard to the very same
species. It is also most instructive to compare--but I have not space here
to enter on details--the evidence advanced by our best botanists on the
question whether certain doubtful forms should be ranked as species or
varieties, with the evidence from fertility adduced by different
hybridisers, or by the same author, from experiments made during different
years. It can thus be shown that neither sterility nor fertility affords
any clear distinction between species and varieties; but that the evidence
from this source graduates away, and is doubtful in the same degree as is
On the Origin of Species |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: seeing me, he acknowledged my presence by a slight bow. I should
have been invisible to Hatfield, or any other gentleman of those
parts. 'I've delivered your cat,' he continued, 'from the hands,
or rather the gun, of Mr. Murray's gamekeeper.'
'God bless you, sir!' cried the grateful old woman, ready to weep
for joy as she received her favourite from his arms.
'Take care of it,' said he, 'and don't let it go near the rabbit-
warren, for the gamekeeper swears he'll shoot it if he sees it
there again: he would have done so to-day, if I had not been in
time to stop him. I believe it is raining, Miss Grey,' added he,
more quietly, observing that I had put aside my work, and was
Agnes Grey |
