| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: point when her amazing reminiscences had begun to flag, when
her future had been exhaustively discussed, her theatrical
prospects minutely studied, her quarrel with Mrs. Murrett
retold with the last amplification of detail, and when,
perhaps conscious of her exhausted resources and his
dwindling interest, she had committed the fatal error of
saying that she could see he was unhappy, and entreating him
to tell her why...
From the brink of estranging confidences, and from the risk
of unfavourable comparisons, his gesture had snatched her
back to safety; and as soon as he had kissed her he felt
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: them at all but some one else unseen. He talks even of a
subject which he knows perfectly with curious inability to
form his sentences; stops, changes words, and often,
recognizing that he cannot finish his sentence, ends where
he is, in the middle of it, with a little odd, deprecating
emphasis, as if to say: "At this point there is a full stop. At
least so it seems."
He gave a short colourless sketch of the history of the
Extraordinary Commission. He referred to the various crises
with which it had had to deal, beginning with the drunken
pogroms in Petrograd, the suppression of the combined
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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: accumulated in the shallow parts, which are the most favourable to life.
Still less could this have happened during the alternate periods of
elevation; or, to speak more accurately, the beds which were then
accumulated will have been destroyed by being upraised and brought within
the limits of the coast-action.
Thus the geological record will almost necessarily be rendered
intermittent. I feel much confidence in the truth of these views, for they
are in strict accordance with the general principles inculcated by Sir C.
Lyell; and E. Forbes independently arrived at a similar conclusion.
One remark is here worth a passing notice. During periods of elevation the
area of the land and of the adjoining shoal parts of the sea will be
On the Origin of Species |
