| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: upon the sides and in the joints of the binding. It is easily wiped off,
but not without leaving a plain mark, where the mould-spots have been.
Under the microscope a mould-spot is seen to be a miniature forest
of lovely trees, covered with a beautiful white foliage, upas trees
whose roots are embedded in the leather and destroy its texture.
Inside the book, damp encourages the growth of those ugly brown
spots which so often disfigure prints and "livres de luxe."
Especially it attacks books printed in the early part of this century,
when paper-makers had just discovered that they could bleach
their rags, and perfectly white paper, well pressed after printing,
had become the fashion. This paper from the inefficient means used
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: there till no matter when. She would have waited, stayed, rung,
asked, have gone in, sat on the stairs. What the day was the last
of was probably, to her strained inner sense, the group of golden
ones, of any occasion for seeing the hazy sunshine slant at that
angle into the smelly shop, of any range of chances for his wishing
still to repeat to her the two words she had in the Park scarcely
let him bring out. "See here--see here!"--the sound of these two
words had been with her perpetually; but it was in her ears to-day
without mercy, with a loudness that grew and grew. What was it
they then expressed? what was it he had wanted her to see? She
seemed, whatever it was, perfectly to see it now--to see that if
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Young Forester by Zane Grey: me down. The terrible thrashing about in the icy water had quenched my
spirit. For a while I was too played out to move, and lay there in my wet
clothes. Finally I asked leave to take them off. Bud, who had come back in
the meantime, helped me, or I should never have got out of them. Herky
brought up my coat, which, fortunately, I had taken off before the ducking.
I did not have the heart to speak to Dick or look at him, so I closed my
eyes and fell asleep.
It was another day when I awoke. I felt all right except for a soreness
under my arms and across my chest where the lasso had chafed and bruised
me. Still I did not recover my good spirits. Herky-Jerky kept on grinning
and cracking jokes on my failure to escape. He had appropriated my revolver
The Young Forester |
