| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually
characterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I
thought his unceasingly agitated mind was labouring with some
oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the
necessary courage. At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all
into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, for I beheld him
gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the
profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary
sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrified--that it
infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain
degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive
The Fall of the House of Usher |
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: different periods, and some to have endured to the present day.
By looking at the diagram we can see that if many of the extinct forms,
supposed to be embedded in the successive formations, were discovered at
several points low down in the series, the three existing families on the
uppermost line would be rendered less distinct from each other. If, for
instance, the genera a1, a5, a10, f8, m3, m6, m9 were disinterred, these
three families would be so closely linked together that they probably would
have to be united into one great family, in nearly the same manner as has
occurred with ruminants and pachyderms. Yet he who objected to call the
extinct genera, which thus linked the living genera of three families
together, intermediate in character, would be justified, as they are
On the Origin of Species |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: and gleamed.
"That would be fine, gentlemen!"
The officers laughed.
"Just to flutter the nuns a bit. They say there are Italian girls
among them. On my word I'd give five years of my life for it!"
"They must be feeling dull, too," said one of the bolder officers,
laughing.
Meanwhile the staff officer standing in front pointed out
something to the general, who looked through his field glass.
"Yes, so it is, so it is," said the general angrily, lowering the
field glass and shrugging his shoulders, "so it is! They'll be fired
War and Peace |
