| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: which had torn Europe in pieces for more than a century, and longed
to say: "After all, we are all alike in one thing--for we are at
least men."
Its spread through England and Scotland, and the seceding bodies
which arose from it, as well as the supposed Jacobite tendency of
certain Scotch lodges, do not concern us here. The point
interesting to us just now is, that Freemasonry was imported to the
Continent exclusively by English and Scotch gentlemen and noblemen.
Lord Derwentwater is said by some to have founded the "Loge
Anglaise" in Paris in 1725; the Duke of Richmond one in his own
castle of Aubigny shortly after. It was through Hanoverian
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: O ye exchange women! (our right worshipful representatives that
are to be) be not so griping in the sale of your ware as your
predecessors, but consider that the nation, like a spend-thrift
heir, has run out: Be likewise a little more continent in your
tongues than you are at present, else the length of debates will
spoil your dinners.
You housewifely good women, who not preside over the
confectionary, (henceforth commissioners of the Treasury) be so
good as to dispense the sugar-plumbs of the Government with a
more impartial and frugal hand.
Ye prudes and censorious old maids, (the hopes of the Bench)
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: in the Timaeus, just as the IDEA of Good is the leading thought of the
Republic, the one expression describing the personal, the other the
impersonal Good or God, differing in form rather than in substance, and
both equally implying to the mind of Plato a divine reality. The slight
touch, perhaps ironical, contained in the words, 'as we shall do well in
believing on the testimony of wise men,' is very characteristic of Plato.
TIMAEUS.
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, Critias, Timaeus, Hermocrates.
SOCRATES: One, two, three; but where, my dear Timaeus, is the fourth of
those who were yesterday my guests and are to be my entertainers to-day?
TIMAEUS: He has been taken ill, Socrates; for he would not willingly have
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