| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: something very clumsy.
But sharp Mrs. Gregory finished for me. "Yes, you mean that if he didn't
live in Kings Port (where we still have reverence, at any rate), he fit
would imbibe all the shallow quackeries of the hour and resemble all the
clever young donkeys of the minute."
"Maria!" Mrs. Weguelin murmurously expostulated.
Mrs. Gregory immediately made me a handsome but equivocal apology. "I
wasn't thinking of you at all!" she declared gayly; and it set me
doubting if perhaps she hadn't, after all, comprehended my impertinence.
"And, thank Heaven!" she continued, "John is one of us, in spite of his
present stubborn course."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: that so great an act of vandalism could have been perpetrated,
even in a Government office. It is true that no demand existed
for some of them, but it is equally true that in numerous cases,
especially in the early specifications of the steam engine and
printing machine, the want of them has caused great disappointment.
To add a climax to the story, many of the "pulped" specifications
have had to be reprinted more than once since their destruction.
CHAPTER VI.
THE BOOKWORM.
THERE is a sort of busy worm
That will the fairest books deform,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: piecing his next speech out of an overpowering abundance of
thoughts.
"You've tried me to the utmost," he said at last; and as soon as he
said these words he lost his moral footing, and felt himself swept
away from his pinnacle by a flood of passionate resentment against the
bungling creature that had come so near to spoiling his life. "Yes;
I've been tried more than any man ought to be," he went on with
righteous bitterness. "It was unfair. What possessed you to? . . .
What possessed you? . . . Write such a . . . After five years of
perfect happiness! 'Pon my word, no one would believe. . . . Didn't
you feel you couldn't? Because you couldn't . . . it was
Tales of Unrest |
