| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: can use the library at the expense of the time, if not temper,
of two Fellows. Some similar restrictions are in force at
the Teylerian Museum, Haarlem, where a lifelong imprisonment is
inflicted upon its many treasures.
Some centuries ago a valuable collection of books was left to
the Guildford Endowed Grammar School. The schoolmaster was to be
held personally responsible for the safety of every volume, which,
if lost, he was bound to replace. I am told that one master,
to minimize his risk as much as possible, took the following
barbarous course:--As soon as he was in possession, he raised
the boards of the schoolroom floor, and, having carefully packed
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: and then it was no longer water and blue heavens; the little craft
seemed to be poised in a vast crystalline sphere, where there was
neither height nor depth--poised motionless in warm, coruscating,
opalescent space, alone with the sun.
At length one morning the schooner, which for the preceding
twenty-four hours had been heading eastward, raised the land, and
by the middle of the afternoon had come up to within a mile of a
low, sandy shore, quivering with heat, and had tied up to the kelp
in Magdalena Bay.
Charlie now took over entire charge of operations. For two days
previous the Chinese hands had been getting out the deck-tubs,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: our innocent endeavours. If it may not, give us the strength to
encounter that which is to come, that we be brave in peril,
constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of
fortune, and, down to the gates of death, loyal and loving one to
another. As the clay to the potter, as the windmill to the wind,
as children of their sire, we beseech of Thee this help and mercy
for Christ's sake.
FOR GRACE
GRANT that we here before Thee may be set free from the fear of
vicissitude and the fear of death, may finish what remains before
us of our course without dishonour to ourselves or hurt to others,
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