| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: The decretals, as their stuft margins show,
Are the sole study. Pope and Cardinals,
Intent on these, ne'er journey but in thought
To Nazareth, where Gabriel op'd his wings.
Yet it may chance, erelong, the Vatican,
And other most selected parts of Rome,
That were the grave of Peter's soldiery,
Shall be deliver'd from the adult'rous bond."
CANTO X
Looking into his first-born with the love,
Which breathes from both eternal, the first Might
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: "Heavens!" cried Monsieur de Bourbonne, "then why do you live in a
garret?"
"Let me go on."
"True--I'm listening."
Octave resumed the letter, but there were passages which he could not
read without deep emotion.
"'My beloved Husband,--You ask me the reason of my sadness. Has
it, then, passed from my soul to my face; or have you only guessed
it?--but how could you fail to do so, one in heart as we are? I
cannot deceive you; this may be a misfortune, for it is one of the
conditions of happy love that a wife shall be gay and caressing.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: in some instances necessarily implies an enormous amount of modification in
the descendants. Throughout whole classes various structures are formed on
the same pattern, and at an embryonic age the species closely resemble each
other. Therefore I cannot doubt that the theory of descent with
modification embraces all the members of the same class. I believe that
animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and
plants from an equal or lesser number.
Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all
animals and plants have descended from some one prototype. But analogy may
be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless all living things have much in common,
in their chemical composition, their germinal vesicles, their cellular
On the Origin of Species |
