| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: Examiners to be appointed in every Parish.
'First, it is thought requisite, and so ordered, that in every parish
there be one, two, or more persons of good sort and credit chosen and
appointed by the alderman, his deputy, and common council of every
ward, by the name of examiners, to continue in that office the space of
two months at least. And if any fit person so appointed shall refuse to
undertake the same, the said parties so refusing to be committed to
prison until they shall conform themselves accordingly.
The Examiner's Office.
'That these examiners he sworn by the aldermen to inquire and learn
from time to time what houses in every parish be visited, and what
 A Journal of the Plague Year |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: 3. Therefore when the sovereign occupies his place as the Son of
Heaven, and he has appointed his three ducal ministers, though (a
prince) were to send in a round symbol-of-rank large enough to fill
both the hands, and that as the precursor of the team of horses (in
the court-yard), such an offering would not be equal to (a lesson of)
this Tao, which one might present on his knees.
4. Why was it that the ancients prized this Tao so much? Was it not
because it could be got by seeking for it, and the guilty could escape
(from the stain of their guilt) by it? This is the reason why all
under heaven consider it the most valuable thing.
63. 1. (It is the way of the Tao) to act without (thinking of) acting;
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: appeal now to the sacred bond of sorrow, and summon the great
multitude who labor under similar afflictions to take their
places in the march.
How many a heart that would have been insensible to any other
call has responded to the doleful accents of that voice! It has
gone far and wide, and high and low, and left scarcely a mortal
roof unvisited. Indeed, the principle is only too universal for
our purpose, and, unless we limit it, will quite break up our
classification of mankind, and convert the whole procession into
a funeral train. We will therefore be at some pains to
discriminate. Here comes a lonely rich man: he has built a noble
 Mosses From An Old Manse |