We won't try it now, because I want
to read you something out of my book.
--I have noticed that the Master very rarely fails to come back to his
original proposition, though he, like myself, is fond of zigzagging in
order to reach it. Men's minds are like the pieces on a chess-board in
their way of moving. One mind creeps from the square it is on to the
next, straight forward, like the pawns. Another sticks close to its own
line of thought and follows it as far as it goes, with no heed for
others' opinions, as the bishop sweeps the board in the line of his own
color. And another class of minds break through everything that lies
before them, ride over argument and opposition, and go to the end of the
board, like the castle. But there is still another sort of intellect
which is very apt to jump over the thought that stands next and come down
in the unexpected way of the knight. But that same knight, as the chess
manuals will show you, will contrive to get on to every square of the
board in a pretty series of moves that looks like a pattern of
embroidery, and so these zigzagging minds like the Master's, and I
suppose my own is something like it, will sooner or later get back to the
square next the one they started from.
The Master took down a volume from one of the shelves. I could not help
noticing that it was a shelf near his hand as he sat, and that the volume
looked as if he had made frequent use of it.
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