| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: 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
distinction between "earl and churl" (the noble and the non-noble
freeman) was crushed out in this island by the two Norman conquests-
-that of the Anglo-Saxon nobility by Sweyn and Canute; and that of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from United States Declaration of Independence: of a free People.
Nor have We been wanting in attention to our British brethren.
We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their
legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and
settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice
and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our
common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably
interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been
deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore,
acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them,
United States Declaration of Independence |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: regarded as the most awful of created things,--namely, a toothless,
hideous, wheezing hag, with cold lips, flattened nose, and whitish
eyes. The pupils of those eyes had brightened, through them rushed a
ray,--was it from the depths of the future or from hell?
Gazonal asked, interrupting the old creature, of what use the toad and
the hen were to her.
"They predict the future. The consulter himself throws grain upon the
cards; Bilouche comes and pecks it. Astaroth crawls over the cards to
get the food the client holds for him, and those two wonderful
intelligences are never mistaken. Will you see them at work?--you will
then know your future. The cost is a hundred francs."
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