| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: the back of the old family house in Stuyvesant Square. Off this
work-shop was the cupboard of supplies, with its row of deadly
bottles. Carrick Venn was an original, a man of restless curious
tastes, and his place, on a Sunday, was often full of visitors: a
cheerful crowd of journalists, scribblers, painters,
experimenters in divers forms of expression. Coming and going
among so many, it was easy enough to pass unperceived; and one
afternoon Granice, arriving before Venn had returned home, found
himself alone in the work-shop, and quickly slipping into the
cupboard, transferred the drug to his pocket.
But that had happened ten years ago; and Venn, poor fellow, was
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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: I attempted also to show that there is a constant tendency in the forms
which are increasing in number and diverging in character, to supplant and
exterminate the less divergent, the less improved, and preceding forms. I
request the reader to turn to the diagram illustrating the action, as
formerly explained, of these several principles; and he will see that the
inevitable result is that the modified descendants proceeding from one
progenitor become broken up into groups subordinate to groups. In the
diagram each letter on the uppermost line may represent a genus including
several species; and all the genera on this line form together one class,
for all have descended from one ancient but unseen parent, and,
consequently, have inherited something in common. But the three genera on
On the Origin of Species |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: of deceit!--I know that I must have disgusted you."
"Pray say no more. I feel that all the apologies should be on my side.
Let us forgive each other at once. We must do whatever is to be
done quickest, and I think our feelings will lose no time there.
I hope you have pleasant accounts from Windsor?"
"Very."
"And the next news, I suppose, will be, that we are to lose you--
just as I begin to know you."
"Oh! as to all that, of course nothing can be thought of yet.
I am here till claimed by Colonel and Mrs. Campbell."
"Nothing can be actually settled yet, perhaps," replied Emma,
Emma |
