| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: distorted volumes, often without covers, often in single leaves,
carefully tended and dry-nursed. Washing, sizing, pressing,
and binding effected wonders, and no one who to-day looks upon
the attractive little alcove in the Guildhall Library labelled
and sees the rows
of handsomely-lettered backs, could imagine that not long ago this,
the most curious portion of the City's literary collections,
was in a state when a five-pound note would have seemed more than
full value for the lot.
CHAPTER II.
WATER.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: "Now, Cap'n Smollett," remonstrated Silver, "dooty is dooty, as I
knows, and none better; but we're off dooty now; and I can't see no
call to keep up the morality business."
"You're a damned rogue, my man," said the Captain.
"Come, come, Cap'n, be just," returned the other. "There's no call
to be angry with me in earnest. I'm on'y a chara'ter in a sea
story. I don't really exist."
"Well, I don't really exist either," says the Captain, "which seems
to meet that."
"I wouldn't set no limits to what a virtuous chara'ter might
consider argument," responded Silver. "But I'm the villain of this
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Foolish Virgin by Thomas Dixon: To the first rush of cowardly tears Mary had
yielded utterly. She had fallen across the high-puffed
feather mattress of the bed, shivering in humble
gratitude at her escape from the horror of blindness.
The grip of his claw-like fingers on her throat came
back to her now in sickening waves. The blood was
still trickling from the wound which his nails had made
when she tore them loose in her first mad fight for
breath.
She lifted her body and breathed deeply to make
sure her throat was free. God in heaven! Could she
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