| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: fallen family, are the last person whom I should have suspected
of such weakness."
"Neither would I deserve your suspicions, kinsman," answered Aunt
Margaret, "if we were speaking of any incident occurring in the
actual business of human life. But for all this, I have a sense
of superstition about me, which I do not wish to part with. It
is a feeling which separates me from this age, and links me with
that to which I am hastening; and even when it seems, as now, to
lead me to the brink of the grave, and bid me gaze on it, I do
not love that it should be dispelled. It soothes my imagination,
without influencing my reason or conduct."
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: before you can altogether forget it. But with all its faults it
confers a great boon upon students, enabling them not only to work
three hours longer in the winter-time, but restoring to them
the use of foggy and dark days, in which formerly no book-work
at all could be pursued.[1]
[1] 1887. The system in use is still "Siemens," but, owing to long
experience and improvements, is not now open to the above objections.
Heat alone, without any noxious fumes, is, if continuous, very injurious
to books, and, without gas, bindings may be utterly destroyed by desiccation,
the leather losing all its natural oils by long exposure to much heat.
It is, therefore, a great pity to place books high up in a room where heat of
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: Along the little churchyard, packed full with women, streams all
the gentle blood of North Devon,--tall and stately men, and fair
ladies, worthy of the days when the gentry of England were by due
right the leaders of the people, by personal prowess and beauty, as
well as by intellect and education. And first, there is my lady
Countess of Bath, whom Sir Richard Grenville is escorting, cap in
hand (for her good Earl Bourchier is in London with the queen); and
there are Bassets from beautiful Umberleigh, and Carys from more
beautiful Clovelly, and Fortescues of Wear, and Fortescues of
Buckland, and Fortescues from all quarters, and Coles from Slade,
and Stukelys from Affton, and St. Legers from Annery, and Coffins
|
