” He worked hard all his life at being himself, but there were no principles to examine when his life was over. It was as if there had been a moral skeleton which had lacked the flesh of the intellect and the blood of experience. The life which he could recall totally was not worth recalling.”
From David Hall’s essay “A Hundred Thousand Straightened Nails”. The essay itself is an extract from Hall’s book ” String too Short to Save”…
In portraying an endearing life picture of a resourceful rural busybody viz. Washington Woodward, Hall builds a wonderful picture of the changing rural landscape of New Hampshire over three generations….
I checked on Amazon and find the book too expensive… It is in times like these, I wish there was a big library close by where I can go and browse through the book.. maybe read a couple of essays.. Sometimes it is not the access but the thought that there is freedom/possibility to such access itself which is so hope inducing… Libraries provide that….
Excursions Of A Bibliophile 