| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: to this subject.
As icebergs are known to be sometimes loaded with earth and stones, and
have even carried brushwood, bones, and the nest of a land-bird, I can
hardly doubt that they must occasionally have transported seeds from one
part to another of the arctic and antarctic regions, as suggested by Lyell;
and during the Glacial period from one part of the now temperate regions to
another. In the Azores, from the large number of the species of plants
common to Europe, in comparison with the plants of other oceanic islands
nearer to the mainland, and (as remarked by Mr. H. C. Watson) from the
somewhat northern character of the flora in comparison with the latitude, I
suspected that these islands had been partly stocked by ice-borne seeds,
On the Origin of Species |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: ran the greatest danger. If a brave man is weighed down by great
calamities or the yoke of persecution, he begins, as it were, by
making the sacrifice of himself; and thereafter every day of his life
becomes one more victory snatched from fate. But from the way in which
the women looked at him it was easy to see that their intense anxiety
was on his account.
"Why should our faith in God fail us, my sisters?" he said, in low but
fervent tones. "We sang His praises through the shrieks of murderers
and their victims at the Carmelites. If it was His will that I should
come alive out of that butchery, it was, no doubt, because I was
reserved for some fate which I am bound to endure without murmuring.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: impossibility of knowing a thing badly: for it was no less a person than
he who said of Margites that 'he knew many things, but knew them all
badly.' The solution of the riddle is this, I imagine:--By 'badly' Homer
meant 'bad' and 'knew' stands for 'to know.' Put the words together;--the
metre will suffer, but the poet's meaning is clear;--'Margites knew all
these things, but it was bad for him to know them.' And, obviously, if it
was bad for him to know so many things, he must have been a good-for-
nothing, unless the argument has played us false.
ALCIBIADES: But I do not think that it has, Socrates: at least, if the
argument is fallacious, it would be difficult for me to find another which
I could trust.
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