| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: scarcely distinguish its murmur; sparrows chirped joyfully and the
immense canopy of heaven spread over it all. Madame Aubain brought out
her sewing, and Virginia amused herself by braiding reeds; Felicite
wove lavender blossoms, while Paul was bored and wished to go home.
Sometimes they crossed the Toucques in a boat, and started to hunt for
sea-shells. The outgoing tide exposed star-fish and sea-urchins, and
the children tried to catch the flakes of foam which the wind blew
away. The sleepy waves lapping the sand unfurled themselves along the
shore that extended as far as the eye could see, but where land began,
it was limited by the downs which separated it from the "Swamp," a
large meadow shaped like a hippodrome. When they went home that way,
A Simple Soul |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: side, and pretty uncomfortable all up the other. Be-
ing Tom Sawyer was easy and comfortable, and it
stayed easy and comfortable till by and by I hear a
steamboat coughing along down the river. Then I
says to myself, s'pose Tom Sawyer comes down on that
boat? And s'pose he steps in here any minute, and
sings out my name before I can throw him a wink to
keep quiet?
Well, I couldn't HAVE it that way; it wouldn't do at
all. I must go up the road and waylay him. So I
told the folks I reckoned I would go up to the town
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: utterly worthless, in the same exact condition as in the most sterile
hybrids. When, on the one hand, we see domesticated animals and plants,
though often weak and sickly, yet breeding quite freely under confinement;
and when, on the other hand, we see individuals, though taken young from a
state of nature, perfectly tamed, long-lived, and healthy (of which I could
give numerous instances), yet having their reproductive system so seriously
affected by unperceived causes as to fail in acting, we need not be
surprised at this system, when it does act under confinement, acting not
quite regularly, and producing offspring not perfectly like their parents
or variable.
Sterility has been said to be the bane of horticulture; but on this view we
On the Origin of Species |
