| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: though when I put it in the water to see, it sank, and she plunged
in and snatched it out before there was opportunity for the
experiment to determine the matter. I still think it is a fish,
but she is indifferent about what it is, and will not let me have
it to try. I do not understand this. The coming of the creature
seems to have changed her whole nature and made her unreasonable
about experiments. She thinks more of it than she does of any of
the other animals, but is not able to explain why. Her mind is
disordered--everything shows it. Sometimes she carries the fish
in her arms half the night when it complains and wants to get to
the water. At such times the water comes out of the places in
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "I believe not," admitted Toto, and he added a little anxiously, "Do
you think, friend Lion, we are now far enough from the Emerald City
for me to risk showing myself, or will Dorothy send me back because I
wasn't invited?"
"Only Dorothy can answer that question," said the Lion. "For my part,
Toto, I consider this affair none of my business, so you must act as
you think best." Then the huge beast went to sleep again, and Toto
snuggled closer to the warm, hairy body and also slept. He was a wise
little dog in his way, and didn't intend to worry when there was
something much better to do.
In the morning the Wizard built a fire, over which the girls cooked a
 The Lost Princess of Oz |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: and western sides of North America, in the Cordillera under the equator and
under the warmer temperate zones, and on both sides of the southern
extremity of the continent. If this be admitted, it is difficult to avoid
believing that the temperature of the whole world was at this period
simultaneously cooler. But it would suffice for my purpose, if the
temperature was at the same time lower along certain broad belts of
longitude.
On this view of the whole world, or at least of broad longitudinal belts,
having been simultaneously colder from pole to pole, much light can be
thrown on the present distribution of identical and allied species. In
America, Dr. Hooker has shown that between forty and fifty of the flowering
 On the Origin of Species |