| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: The greater number of stories and plays con-
tained in these volumes date from the years fol-
lowing upon Tolstoy's pedagogic activity. Long
intervals, however, elapsed in most cases between
the original synopsis and the final touches. Thus
"Father Serge," of which he sketched the outline
to Mr. Chertkov in 1890, was so often put aside
to make way for purely ethical writings that not
till 1898 does the entry occur in his diary, "To-
day, quite unexpectedly, I finished Serge " A
year previously a dramatic incident had come to
The Forged Coupon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: The good book of the hour, then,--I do not speak of the bad ones,--
is simply the useful or pleasant talk of some person whom you cannot
otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful often,
telling you what you need to know; very pleasant often, as a
sensible friend's present talk would be. These bright accounts of
travels; good-humoured and witty discussions of question; lively or
pathetic story-telling in the form of novel; firm fact-telling, by
the real agents concerned in the events of passing history;--all
these books of the hour, multiplying among us as education becomes
more general, are a peculiar possession of the present age: we
ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth: are so severe, that the majority of the Out-of-Works prefer to sleep in
the open air, taking their chance of the inclemency and mutability of
our English weather, rather than go through the experience of the
Casual Ward.
It seems to me that such a mode of coping with distress does not so
much meet the difficulty as evade it. It is obvious that an apparatus,
which only provides for 1,136 persons per night, is utterly unable to
deal with the numbers of the homeless Out-of-Works. But if by some
miracle we could use the Casual Wards as a means of providing for all
those who are seeking work from day to day, without a place in which to
lay their heads, save the kerbstone of the pavement or the back of a
In Darkest England and The Way Out |
