| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: a man of lofty stature, clad in an iron-gray frock-coat, armed
with a heavy cane, and wearing a battered hat, turned round abruptly
behind him, and followed him with his eyes until he disappeared,
with folded arms and a slow shake of the head, and his upper lip
raised in company with his lower to his nose, a sort of significant
grimace which might be translated by: "What is that man, after all?
I certainly have seen him somewhere. In any case, I am not
his dupe."
This person, grave with a gravity which was almost menacing,
was one of those men who, even when only seen by a rapid glimpse,
arrest the spectator's attention.
Les Miserables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: 'WHEREAS in the reign of our late Sovereign King James, of happy
memory, an Act was made for the charitable relief and ordering of
persons infected with the plague, whereby authority was given to
justices of the peace, mayors, bailiffs, and other head-officers to
appoint within their several limits examiners, searchers, watchmen,
keepers, and buriers for the persons and places infected, and to
minister unto them oaths for the performance of their offices. And the
same statute did also authorise the giving of other directions, as unto
them for the present necessity should seem good in their directions. It
is now, upon special consideration, thought very expedient for
preventing and avoiding of infection of sickness (if it shall so please
A Journal of the Plague Year |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: too many, alas!--who are still mere boys in mind. To a reasonable
household suffrage it cannot apply. The man who (being almost
certainly married, and having children) can afford to rent a 5 pound
tenement in a town, or in the country either, has seen quite enough
of life, and learnt quite enough of it, to form a very fair judgment
of the man who offers to represent him in Parliament; because he has
learnt, not merely something of his own interest, or that of his
class, but--what is infinitely more important--the difference
between the pretender and the honest man.
The causes of this state of society, which is peculiar to Britain,
must be sought far back in the ages. It would seem that the
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