Excerpt from As If: A Philosophical Phantasy Containing bits of colored glass and crystal, things without value to others, but precious to me, for they were mine in the deepest sense - I had recognized their worth and claimed them from the oblivion other wise their doom. This, the treasure-boa: of my later years, is the child of that earlier one. I had hoped to arrange these fragments of thought into some mosaic; I had even aspired to a design - some grand conception -for a window in the Temple of Truth, through which others might see my vision and dream my dreams. But now as in those by-gone days, I_ offer only a kaleidoscope to those who would share my confidence. If you shut one eye tight and look hard with the other, you will see - I' beg your pardon, I was thinking of the other boas. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.