|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: ante-rooms, our bookcase shelves,--we make no account of that
company,--perhaps never listen to a word they would say, all day
long!
You may tell me, perhaps, or think within yourselves, that the
apathy with which we regard this company of the noble, who are
praying us to listen to them; and the passion with which we pursue
the company, probably of the ignoble, who despise us, or who have
nothing to teach us, are grounded in this,--that we can see the
faces of the living men, and it is themselves, and not their
sayings, with which we desire to become familiar. But it is not so.
Suppose you never were to see their faces;--suppose you could be put
|
