| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: increase: it will be under the mark to assume that it breeds when thirty
years old, and goes on breeding till ninety years old, bringing forth three
pair of young in this interval; if this be so, at the end of the fifth
century there would be alive fifteen million elephants, descended from the
first pair.
But we have better evidence on this subject than mere theoretical
calculations, namely, the numerous recorded cases of the astonishingly
rapid increase of various animals in a state of nature, when circumstances
have been favourable to them during two or three following seasons. Still
more striking is the evidence from our domestic animals of many kinds which
have run wild in several parts of the world: if the statements of the rate
On the Origin of Species |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: I made a round hole at the top of the partition, about as big as a
five-sou piece. I had forgotten that there would be no light in the
room, and on putting my eye to the hole, I saw only darkness. At about
one in the morning, when we had finished our books and were about to
undress, we heard a noise in our neighbor's room. He got up, struck a
match, and lighted his dip. I got on to the drawers again, and I then
saw Marcas seated at his table and copying law-papers.
His room was about half the size of ours; the bed stood in a recess by
the door, for the passage ended there, and its breadth was added to
his garret; but the ground on which the house was built was evidently
irregular, for the party-wall formed an obtuse angle, and the room was
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: end of the necklace?"
I stared at her. "Don't you remember" - I leaned forward - "the
end of the cameo necklace, the part that was broken off, and was
found in the black sealskin bag, stained with - with blood?"
"Blood," she said dully. "You mean that you found the broken end?
And then - you had my gold pocket-book, and you saw the necklace in
it, and you - must have thought - "
"I didn't think anything," I hastened to assure her. "I tell you,
Alison, I never thought of anything but that you were unhappy, and
that I had no right to help you. God knows, I thought you didn't
want me to help you."
The Man in Lower Ten |
