| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: we went gravely into what was to be done. First, Dr. Seward told us that when
he and Dr. Van Helsing had gone down to the room below they had found Renfield
lying on the floor, all in a heap. His face was all bruised and crushed in,
and the bones of the neck were broken.
Dr. Seward asked the attendant who was on duty in the passage if he had
heard anything. He said that he had been sitting down, he confessed
to half dozing, when he heard loud voices in the room, and then Renfield
had called out loudly several times, "God! God! God!" After that
there was a sound of falling, and when he entered the room he found
him lying on the floor, face down, just as the doctors had seen him.
Van Helsing asked if he had heard "voices" or "a voice," and he said
Dracula |
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: peculiar flora of the Cape of Good Hope occur. At the Cape of Good Hope a
very few European species, believed not to have been introduced by man, and
on the mountains, some few representative European forms are found, which
have not been discovered in the intertropical parts of Africa. On the
Himalaya, and on the isolated mountain-ranges of the peninsula of India, on
the heights of Ceylon, and on the volcanic cones of Java, many plants
occur, either identically the same or representing each other, and at the
same time representing plants of Europe, not found in the intervening hot
lowlands. A list of the genera collected on the loftier peaks of Java
raises a picture of a collection made on a hill in Europe! Still more
striking is the fact that southern Australian forms are clearly represented
On the Origin of Species |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: towards him.
"The general," said he, "is not rich, and cannot pay you
what he is worth. I am richer, certainly, but now that he is
a duke, and if not a king, almost a king, he is worth a sum
I could not perhaps pay. Come, M. d'Artagnan, be moderate
with me; how much do I owe you?"
D'Artagnan, delighted at the turn things were taking, but
not for a moment losing his self-possession, replied, --
"Sire, your majesty has no occasion to be alarmed. When I
had the good fortune to take his grace, M. Monk was only a
general; it is therefore only a general's ransom that is due
Ten Years Later |
