| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: at a Lord Mayor's feast, or any other publick entertainment. But
this, and many others, I omit, being studious of brevity.
Supposing that one thousand families in this city, would be
constant customers for infants flesh, besides others who might
have it at merry meetings, particularly at weddings and
christenings, I compute that Dublin would take off annually about
twenty thousand carcasses; and the rest of the kingdom (where
probably they will be sold somewhat cheaper) the remaining eighty
thousand.
I can think of no one objection, that will possibly be raised
against this proposal, unless it should be urged, that the number
A Modest Proposal |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Confessio Amantis by John Gower: And evere I waite upon the tyde.
If sche loke eny thing asyde, 7130
That I me mai of hire avise,
Anon I am with covoitise
So smite, that me were lief
To ben in holi cherche a thief;
Bot noght to stele a vestement,
For that is nothing mi talent,
Bot I wold stele, if that I mihte,
A glad word or a goodly syhte;
And evere mi service I profre,
Confessio Amantis |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: tall, very thin, very bald man, seated at a table on which he was
arranging papers. On hearing the door open, he pushed his spectacles
up on his forehead, rested his hands on the arms of his chair, and
looking round at us he waited.
"Monsieur le Comte de Sallenauve," said Jacques Bricheteau, announcing
me with the solemnity of an usher of ambassadors or a groom of the
Chambers.
But in the presence of the man to whom I owed my life the ice in me
was instantly melted; I stepped forward with an eager impulse, feeling
the tears rise to my eyes. He did not move. There was not the faintest
trace of agitation in his face, which had that peculiar look of high
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