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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: all paths led to it. After the tossing half-forgetfulness of the
first sleep that follows such an event, it comes upon us afresh, as
a surprise, at waking; in a few moments it is old again, - old as
eternity.
[I wish I had not said all this then and there. I might have known
better. The pale schoolmistress, in her mourning dress, was
looking at me, as I noticed, with a wild sort of expression. All
at once the blood dropped out of her cheeks as the mercury drops
from a broken barometer-tube, and she melted away from her seat
like an image of snow; a slung-shot could not have brought her down
better. God forgive me!
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
