The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: great skill on all available surfaces. I thought, by the way, they
were all gone; but the other day I found them on a certain door
which I will show you some time. How it surprised me to find them
so near the ground! I had thought the boy of no trivial
dimensions. Well, O. T., when he went, made a solemn promise to
two of us. I was to have a ship, and the other a marTIN-house
(last syllable pronounced as in the word TIN). Neither ever came;
but, oh, how many and many a time I have stolen to the corner, -
the cars pass close by it at this time, - and looked up that long
avenue, thinking that he must be coming now, almost sure, as I
turned to look northward, that there he would be, trudging toward
 The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |