| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: double meaning marred its charm; its keenness was not
perifidious, its humor seemed kindly, and no trace of remorse
disturbed its equanimity.
He sat down to the card-table. Adelaide took side with the
painter, saying that he did not know piquet, and needed a
partner.
All through the game Madame de Rouville and her daughter
exchanged looks of intelligence, which alarmed Hippolyte all the
more because he was winning; but at last a final hand left the
lovers in the old lady's debt.
To feel for some money in his pocket the painter took his hands
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: her in the straw-coloured frock, the violet mantle, and the yellow cobweb
stockings. Archie's image, on the other hand, when it presented itself
was never welcomed - far less welcomed with any ardour, and it was exposed
at times to merciless criticism. In the long vague dialogues she held in
her mind, often with imaginary, often with unrealised interlocutors,
Archie, if he were referred to at all came in for savage handling. He
was described as "looking like a stork," "staring like a caulf," "a face
like a ghaist's." "Do you call that manners?" she said; or, "I soon put
him in his place." " `MISS CHRISTINA, IF YOU PLEASE, MR. WEIR!' says I,
and just flyped up my skirt tails." With gabble like this she would
entertain herself long whiles together, and then her eye would perhaps
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: unimportant parts; but I could show by a long catalogue of facts, that
parts which must be called important, whether viewed under a physiological
or classificatory point of view, sometimes vary in the individuals of the
same species. I am convinced that the most experienced naturalist would be
surprised at the number of the cases of variability, even in important
parts of structure, which he could collect on good authority, as I have
collected, during a course of years. It should be remembered that
systematists are far from pleased at finding variability in important
characters, and that there are not many men who will laboriously examine
internal and important organs, and compare them in many specimens of the
same species. I should never have expected that the branching of the main
On the Origin of Species |
