| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: agree with any one of his beliefs; and yet the spell is cast.
Such are the best teachers; a dogma learned is only a new
error - the old one was perhaps as good; but a spirit
communicated is a perpetual possession. These best teachers
climb beyond teaching to the plane of art; it is themselves,
and what is best in themselves, that they communicate.
I should never forgive myself if I forgot THE EGOIST. It is
art, if you like, but it belongs purely to didactic art, and
from all the novels I have read (and I have read thousands)
stands in a place by itself. Here is a Nathan for the modern
David; here is a book to send the blood into men's faces.
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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: Golden Legend, by Caxton, 52.
Gordon Riots, 11.
Government officials as biblioclasts, 65.
Grenville (Rt. Hon. Thos.), 56.
Guildford, library at school, 129.
Guildhall, London, library at, 0.
Gutenberg, 123.
--documents concerning, burnt, 13,
Gwyn, Nell, housekeeping book of, 65.
"Gyp" brushing clothes in a library, 44.
Hannett, on bookbinding, 76.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: she was obliged, or could oblige herself to speak to him.
THESE assured him that his exertion had produced an
increase of good-will towards himself, and THESE gave
Elinor hopes of its being farther augmented hereafter;
but Mrs. Jennings, who knew nothing of all this, who knew
only that the Colonel continued as grave as ever, and that
she could neither prevail on him to make the offer himself,
nor commission her to make it for him, began, at the
end of two days, to think that, instead of Midsummer,
they would not be married till Michaelmas, and by the
end of a week that it would not be a match at all.
Sense and Sensibility |
