{"product_id":"2940013769014","title":"A Man's Life","description":"The man in the bed found himself again. He was a boy at home, condemned\u003cbr\u003eto toil in his father's garden without respite. It was a hostile garden,\u003cbr\u003ehorribly rectangular. It was laid out in squares and rows, and no weed\u003cbr\u003ewas allowed to enter. It was his job to see to that. He hated the sight\u003cbr\u003eof the severely pruned plants condemned to their yearly toil. There were\u003cbr\u003eno untidy plots, no unevenness; the raspberry canes stood as stiffly as\u003cbr\u003esoldiers on parade, without an unlawful bud spoiling their terrible and\u003cbr\u003etortured symmetry. The bushes were all in a formal pattern, just as his\u003cbr\u003elife was. Regularly the garden was manured; and how he loathed the smell\u003cbr\u003eof manure! Yet from it Life sprang with a terrifying zest. And the boy\u003cbr\u003efelt that Life had cut and pruned him, too. He could not look ahead: it\u003cbr\u003eseemed to him that he would always be a prisoner in that terrible garden.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis mother was kinder. She, by some strange dispensation, was allowed to\u003cbr\u003escatter seeds anywhere, never quite sure what she was scattering, and\u003cbr\u003eallowing the plants--useless flowers, not ungainly vegetables--to follow\u003cbr\u003etheir vagrant dispositions. That was what the world should be, a tangle\u003cbr\u003eof arrogant plants, springing even from the rectangular paths. And he\u003cbr\u003efelt the inhibitions of his personality so keenly that he looked forward\u003cbr\u003eto his future with a silent terror. He could not see over the trimmed\u003cbr\u003ehedges to the world without.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was one escape--books. He read everything he could find. Night\u003cbr\u003eafter night he would slip down to a library, bathing himself in wonderful\u003cbr\u003ebeauty, only half understood, but letting strange and exciting worlds\u003cbr\u003einvade his soul. He read Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and Shakespeare;\u003cbr\u003escientific books, adventures, poetry--anything that promised him\u003cbr\u003eknowledge. For he felt within him a strange and eager desire to\u003cbr\u003eunderstand everything. But the more he read the more he faltered. He used\u003cbr\u003eto look up at the backs of the volumes on the shelves. Some day he would\u003cbr\u003eknow them all, every page in every book! He was not going to let Life\u003cbr\u003ebeat him in his tremendous quest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo night after night, having done his lessons--of what use were\u003cbr\u003elessons?--he would look up with a sigh of discontent. He would never know\u003cbr\u003eall--everything! Life was too short for that. Of course, he told himself\u003cbr\u003ein self-pity that he would die young. Poets, he had read, oft-times died\u003cbr\u003eyoung: that was their luck; they did not have to face a grown-up world.\u003cbr\u003eBut he felt within him so much that he could not express. How terrible\u003cbr\u003efor him--and for the world--if he died that night! Humanity would never\u003cbr\u003eknow what it had lost. Other poets were growing all around him,\u003cbr\u003ethreatening his supremacy, getting a start in the quest of Fame. If only\u003cbr\u003ehe knew how to express himself, but his mind was all fluidity--images\u003cbr\u003ethat he could not grasp, eluding, tremendous and staggering wonders. Life\u003cbr\u003ewasn't large enough for him to express all that was in his soul.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070248829168,"sku":"2940013769014","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013769014_p0.jpg?v=1763590023","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013769014","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}