| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: "Ah, if I had hold of you once, I'd make you dance. She had
five thousand dollars in that room, while I stood there, not
twenty feet away, and told her I was starving, and she
wouldn't give me a dime to get a cup of coffee with; not a
dime to get a cup of coffee. Oh, if I once get my hands on
you!" His wrath strangled him. He clutched at the darkness
in front of him, his breath fairly whistling between his
teeth.
That night he walked the streets until the morning,
wondering what now he was to do to fight the wolf away. The
morning of the next day towards ten o'clock he was on
McTeague |
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: especially when compared with all the species in nature to which they are
nearest allied. With these exceptions (and with that of the perfect
fertility of varieties when crossed,--a subject hereafter to be discussed),
domestic races of the same species differ from each other in the same
manner as, only in most cases in a lesser degree than, do closely-allied
species of the same genus in a state of nature. I think this must be
admitted, when we find that there are hardly any domestic races, either
amongst animals or plants, which have not been ranked by some competent
judges as mere varieties, and by other competent judges as the descendants
of aboriginally distinct species. If any marked distinction existed
between domestic races and species, this source of doubt could not so
On the Origin of Species |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: Chazelle [dismally]. "Disgusting business! I don't see why we should
be treated like slaves because the government gives us four francs and
sixty-five centimes a day."
Fleury [entering]. "Down with Baudoyer! hurrah for Rabourdin!--that's
the cry in the division."
Chazelle [getting more and more angry]. "Baudoyer can turn off me if
he likes, I sha'n't care. In Paris there are a thousand ways of
earning five francs a day; why, I could earn that at the Palais de
Justice, copying briefs for the lawyers."
Paulmier [still prodding him]. "It is very easy to say that; but a
government place is a government place, and that plucky Colleville,
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