| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: coming from the westward omit to keep a good offing, or are taken
short by contrary winds, and cannot weather the high land of
Portland, but are driven between Portland and the mainland. If
they can come to an anchor, and ride it out, well and good; and if
not, they run on shore on that vast beach and are lost without
remedy.
On the inside of this beach, and between it and the land, there is,
as I have said, an inlet of water which they ferry over, as above,
to pass and re-pass to and from Portland: this inlet opens at
about two miles west, and grows very broad, and makes a kind of
lake within the land of a mile and a half broad, and near three
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Talisman by Walter Scott: table below him. On the cloth were placed portions of salt at
the usual distances, but neither bread, wine, nor water. The
ambassadors, rather surprised at this omission, but still free
from apprehension, awaited in silence the arrival of the dinner,
which was announced by the sound of pipes, trumpets, and tabours;
and beheld, with horror and dismay, the unnatural banquet
introduced by the steward and his officers. Yet their sentiments
of disgust and abhorrence, and even their fears, were for a time
suspended by their curiosity. Their eyes were fixed on the king,
who, without the slightest change of countenance, swallowed the
morsels as fast as they could be supplied by the knight who
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: matter might be different; and to that I bow -- wow.
INFIDEL, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian
religion; in Constantinople, one who does. (See GIAOUR.) A kind of
scoundrel imperfectly reverent of, and niggardly contributory to,
divines, ecclesiastics, popes, parsons, canons, monks, mollahs,
voodoos, presbyters, hierophants, prelates, obeah-men, abbes, nuns,
missionaries, exhorters, deacons, friars, hadjis, high-priests,
muezzins, brahmins, medicine-men, confessors, eminences, elders,
primates, prebendaries, pilgrims, prophets, imaums, beneficiaries,
clerks, vicars-choral, archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors,
preachers, padres, abbotesses, caloyers, palmers, curates, patriarchs,
The Devil's Dictionary |
