| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, a year hence, and for evermore. On all
things here below they pass immutable judgments, which go to make up a
body of tradition into which no power of mortal man can infuse one
drop of wit or sense. The lives of these persons revolve with the
regularity of clockwork in an orbit of use and wont which admits of no
more deviation or change than their opinions on matters religious,
political, moral, or literary.
If a stranger is admitted to the /cenacle/, every member of it in turn
will say (not without a trace of irony), "You will not find the
brilliancy of your Parisian society here," and proceed forthwith to
criticise the life led by his neighbors, as if he himself were an
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: There are some things very curious to be seen here, however some
superficial writers have been ignorant of them. Dr. Beeston, an
eminent physician, began a few years ago a physic garden adjoining
to his house in this town; and as he is particularly curious, and,
as I was told, exquisitely skilled in botanic knowledge, so he has
been not only very diligent, but successful too, in making a
collection of rare and exotic plants, such as are scarce to be
equalled in England.
One Mr. White, a surgeon, resides also in this town. But before I
speak of this gentleman, I must observe that I say nothing from
personal knowledge; though if I did, I have too good an opinion of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: Also from the Dead Sea to go eastward, out of the marches of the
Holy Land that is clept the Land of Promission, is a strong castle
and a fair, in an hill that is clept Carak in Sarmois; that is to
say, Royally. That castle let make King Baldwin, that was King of
France, when he had conquered that land, and put it into Christian
men's hands for to keep that country; and for that cause was it
clept the Mount Royal. And under it there is a town that hight
Sobach, and there, all about, dwell Christian men, under tribute.
From thence go men to Nazareth, of the which our Lord beareth the
surname. And from thence there is three journeys to Jerusalem:
and men go by the province of Galilee by Ramath, by Sothim and by
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