| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: 'An experienced physician, who has long studied the doctrine of
antidotes against all sorts of poison and infection, has, after forty
years' practice, arrived to such skill as may, with God's blessing, direct
persons how to prevent their being touched by any contagious
distemper whatsoever. He directs the poor gratis.'
I take notice of these by way of specimen. I could give you two or
three dozen of the like and yet have abundance left behind. 'Tis
sufficient from these to apprise any one of the humour of those times,
and how a set of thieves and pickpockets not only robbed and cheated
the poor people of their money, but poisoned their bodies with odious
and fatal preparations; some with mercury, and some with other things
A Journal of the Plague Year |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: mastiffs, for cats may not take them. In this isle and many other
men bury not no dead men, for the heat is there so great, that in a
little time the flesh will consume from the bones.
From thence men go by sea toward Ind the more to a city, that men
clepe Sarche, that is a fair city and a good. And there dwell many
Christian men of good faith. And there be many religious men, and
namely of mendicants.
After go men by sea to the land of Lomb. In that land groweth the
pepper in the forest that men clepe Combar. And it groweth nowhere
else in all the world, but in that forest, and that endureth well
an eighteen journeys in length. In the forest be two good cities;
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: "I mean, monsieur, that he is a man upon whose life enormous sums
depend, and whose good health is undoubtedly essential to the
continuance of this family's income. I remember that I once heard a
mesmerist, at Madame d'Espard's, undertake to prove by very specious
historical deductions, that this old man, if put under the magnifying
glass, would turn out to be the famous Balsamo, otherwise called
Cagliostro. According to this modern alchemist, the Sicilian had
escaped death, and amused himself making gold for his grandchildren.
And the Bailli of Ferette declared that he recognized in this
extraordinary personage the Comte de Saint-Germain."
Such nonsense as this, put forth with the assumption of superior
|
