| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: gone through an extraordinary amount of modification since the genus arose;
and thus we can understand why it should often still be variable in a much
higher degree than other parts; for variation is a long-continued and slow
process, and natural selection will in such cases not as yet have had time
to overcome the tendency to further variability and to reversion to a less
modified state. But when a species with any extraordinarily-developed
organ has become the parent of many modified descendants--which on my view
must be a very slow process, requiring a long lapse of time--in this case,
natural selection may readily have succeeded in giving a fixed character to
the organ, in however extraordinary a manner it may be developed. Species
inheriting nearly the same constitution from a common parent and exposed to
On the Origin of Species |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: "has been forming a very bold wish. We leave Bath,
as she has perhaps told you, on Saturday se'nnight. A
letter from my steward tells me that my presence is wanted
at home; and being disappointed in my hope of seeing
the Marquis of Longtown and General Courteney here,
some of my very old friends, there is nothing to detain
me longer in Bath. And could we carry our selfish point
with you, we should leave it without a single regret.
Can you, in short, be prevailed on to quit this scene
of public triumph and oblige your friend Eleanor with your
company in Gloucestershire? I am almost ashamed to make
Northanger Abbey |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: this occasion the Norman countenances of all these rejected visitors,
but more especially to enter into Madame de Dey's secret anxieties, it
is necessary to explain the role she played at Carentan. The critical
position in which she stood at this moment being that of many others
during the Revolution the sympathies and recollections of more than
one reader will help to give color to this narrative.
Madame de Dey, widow of a lieutenant-general, chevalier of the Orders,
had left the court at the time of the emigration. Possessing a good
deal of property in the neighborhood of Carentan, she took refuge in
that town, hoping that the influence of the Terror would be little
felt there. This expectation, based on a knowledge of the region, was
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