It is my belief, however, that, had I attempted a different orderof composition, my faculties would not have been found so pointlessand inefficacious. I might, for instance, have contented myselfwith writing out the narratives of a veteran shipmaster, oneof the Inspectors, whom I should be most ungrateful not to mention,since scarcely a day passed that he did not stir me to laughterand admiration by his marvellous gifts as a story-teller.Could I have preserved the picturesque force of his style, andthe humorous coloring which nature taught him how to throwover his descriptions, the result, I honestly believe, would havebeen something new in literature. Or I might readily have founda more serious task. It was a folly, with the materiality of thisdaily life pressing so intrusively upon me, to attempt to flingmyself back into another age; or to insist on creating the semblanceof a world out of airy matter, when, at every moment,the impalpable beauty of my soap-bubble was broken by therude contact of some actual circumstance. The wiser effort would[40]have been, to diffuse thought and imagination through the opaquesubstance of to-day, and thus to make it a bright transparency;to spiritualize the burden that began to weigh so heavily; toseek, resolutely, the true and indestructible value that lay hiddenin the petty and wearisome incidents, and ordinary characters,with which I was now conversant. The fault was mine. Thepage of life that was spread out before me seemed dull and commonplace,only because I had not fathomed its deeper import.A better book than I shall ever write was there; leaf after leafpresenting itself to me, just as it was written out by the realityof the flitting hour, and vanishing as fast as written, only becausemy brain wanted the insight and my hand the cunning to transcribeit. At some future day, it may be, I shall remember afew scattered fragments and broken paragraphs, and write themdown, and find the letters turn to gold upon the page.
Adventurers Wanted Book 5 The Axe Of Sundering Pdf 104
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