| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: dear to none, interesting to none, and who never even attracted to
himself the attention of those students of human nature who omit no
opportunity of thrusting a pin through a common fly, and examining it
under the microscope. A being who bore meekly the jibes of the
department, and went to his grave without having done one unusual
deed, but to whom, nevertheless, at the close of his life appeared a
bright visitant in the form of a cloak, which momentarily cheered his
poor life, and upon whom, thereafter, an intolerable misfortune
descended, just as it descends upon the mighty of this world!
Several days after his death, the porter was sent from the department
to his lodgings, with an order for him to present himself there
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: latter principle alone we might perhaps expect, that vivid pleasure
would be apt to show itself conversely in muscular movements.
With all or almost all animals, even with birds, Terror causes the body
to tremble. The skin becomes pale, sweat breaks out, and the hair bristles.
The secretions of the alimentary canal and of the kidneys are increased,
and they are involuntarily voided, owing to the relaxation of the
sphincter muscles, as is known to be the case with man, and as I have
seen with cattle, dogs, cats, and monkeys. The breathing is hurried.
The heart beats quickly, wildly, and violently; but whether it pumps
the blood more efficiently through the body may be doubted, for the
surface seems bloodless and the strength of the muscles soon fails.
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: hoped, of still further promotion.
I mentioned just now Synapta; or, as Montagu called it, Chirodota:
a much better name, and, I think, very uselessly changed; for
Chirodota expresses the peculiarity of the beast, which consists in
- start not, reader - twelve hands, like human hands, while Synapta
expresses merely its power of clinging to the fingers, which it
possesses in common with many other animals. It is, at least, a
beast worth talking about; as for finding one, I fear that we have
no chance of such good fortune.
Colonel Montagu found them here some forty years ago; and after
him, Mr. Alder, in 1845. I found hundreds of them, but only once,
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