| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Adam Bede by George Eliot: this feeling on Gyp's part that, when Lisbeth came into the
workshop and advanced towards Adam as noiselessly as she could,
her intention not to awaken him was immediately defeated; for
Gyp's excitement was too great to find vent in anything short of a
sharp bark, and in a moment Adam opened his eyes and saw his
mother standing before him. It was not very unlike his dream, for
his sleep had been little more than living through again, in a
fevered delirious way, all that had happened since daybreak, and
his mother with her fretful grief was present to him through it
all. The chief difference between the reality and the vision was
that in his dream Hetty was continually coming before him in
Adam Bede |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: The persons concerned in this statement are Helen V.,
who, if she is still alive, must now be a woman of
twenty-three, Rachel M., since deceased, who was a year younger
than the above, and Trevor W., an imbecile, aged eighteen.
These persons were at the period of the story inhabitants of a
village on the borders of Wales, a place of some importance in
the time of the Roman occupation, but now a scattered hamlet,
of not more than five hundred souls. It is situated on rising
ground, about six miles from the sea, and is sheltered by a
large and picturesque forest.
Some eleven years ago, Helen V. came to the village under
The Great God Pan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: function alone, and thus wholly change its nature by insensible steps. Two
distinct organs sometimes perform simultaneously the same function in the
same individual; to give one instance, there are fish with gills or
branchiae that breathe the air dissolved in the water, at the same time
that they breathe free air in their swimbladders, this latter organ having
a ductus pneumaticus for its supply, and being divided by highly vascular
partitions. In these cases, one of the two organs might with ease be
modified and perfected so as to perform all the work by itself, being aided
during the process of modification by the other organ; and then this other
organ might be modified for some other and quite distinct purpose, or be
quite obliterated.
On the Origin of Species |
