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Ito had proposed that since a lady was the chief guest of honour, therefore all the Fujinami ladies ought to be invited to meet her. To Mr. Fujinami's strict conservative mind such an idea was anathema. What! Wives at a banquet! In a public restaurant! With geisha present! Absurd and disgusting! O tempora! O mores! Then, argued the lawyer, Asako must not be invited.
There are cases in our books which bear such marks of haste and inattention, that they demand reconsideration. There are some which must be disregarded, because they cannot be reconciled with others. There are old decisions of which the authority has become obsolete, by a total alteration in the circumstances of the country and the progress of opinion. Tempora mutantur.
Hence to be master of one's environment is really to have the universe within one's grasp. We are too much afraid of customs and traditions. We are put into our times, not that the times may mould us, but that we may mould the times! Ways? Customs? They exist to be changed! The tempora and the mores should be plastic to our touch. The times are never level with our best.
Among these may be noticed the couplet emblazoned by the banker Agostino Chigi before his palace: Olim habuit Cypris sua tempora; tempora Mavors Olim habuit; sua nunc tempora Pallas habet.
"Tempora certa modosque, et, quod prius ordine verbum est, Posterius facias, praeponens ultima primis Invenias etiam disjecti membra poetae." he will never the more lose himself for that; the very pieces will be fine by themselves.
Then perierunt tempora longi servitii; they are cast off with scorn; they are turned out, emptied of all natural character, of all intrinsic worth, of all essential dignity, and deprived of every consolation of friendship.
"This practice is too lightly adopted by thoughtless or conscienceless physicians. This practice is much on the increase. I once heard a known obstetrician of the old school say: 'I would as lief kill, if necessary, an unborn child as a rat. So much for the estimate he put on the value of human life! O tempora! O mores! "Is it not time that this wanton 'massacre of the innocents' should cease?
"In omnibus Sabbatis per annum entra Adventum et Quadragesimam, ac nisi Quatuor Tempora aut Vigiliae ocurrant," etc.
A minute later Septimus Marvin was shaking him by the hand with a vague and uncertain but kindly grasp. "Sep came running to tell me that you were home again," he said, struggling out of his overcoat. "Yes yes. Home again to the old place. And little changed, I can see. Little changed, my boy. Tempora mutantur, eh? and we mutamur in illis. But you are the same." "Of course. Why should I change?
Slowly but surely we are lapsing into Bullo-doodledom, with a momentary preponderance of Bull. Tempora do, I entreat you, allow me the use of my solitary dear delightful old bit of Latin mutantur; ay! and we mutate with them. The world moves, and no amount of Haul-back will stay it.
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