| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: themselves, "I shall be sure to come in for it in three years'
time, and then----" A murderer is less loathsome to us than a
spy. The murderer may have acted on a sudden mad impulse; he may
be penitent and amend; but a spy is always a spy, night and day,
in bed, at table, as he walks abroad; his vileness pervades every
moment of his life. Then what must it be to live when every
moment of your life is tainted with murder? And have we not just
admitted that a host of human creatures in our midst are led by
our laws, customs, and usages to dwell without ceasing on a
fellow-creature's death? There are men who put the weight of a
coffin into their deliberations as they bargain for Cashmere
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Royalty Restored/London Under Charles II by J. Fitzgerald Molloy: this note of alarm he forebodes danger to come. A man of his
majesty's character, witty and careless, weak and voluptuous, was
not likely to reconstruct his court, or reclaim it from ways he
loved. Nor was his union calculated to exercise a lasting
impression on him. The affection he bore his wife in the first
weeks of their married life was due to the novelty he found in
her society, together with the absence of temptation in the shape
of his mistress. Constancy to the marriage vow was scarcely to
be expected from a man whose morals had never been shackled by
restraint; yet faithlessness to a bride was scarcely to be
anticipated ere the honeymoon had waned. This was, however, the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: to a certain amount of mental disquietude and uneasiness when I
think of books worth 50,000 denarii--or, speaking roughly,
say L18,750,[1] of our modern money being made into bonfires.
What curious illustrations of early heathenism, of Devil worship,
of Serpent worship, of Sun worship, and other archaic forms
of religion; of early astrological and chemical lore,
derived from the Egyptians, the Persians, the Greeks;
what abundance of superstitious observances and what is now termed
"Folklore"; what riches, too, for the philological student,
did those many books contain, and how famous would the library
now be that could boast of possessing but a few of them.
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