The bell with a subscription
Page 109CHAPTER 8
The bell with a subscription
The invitation to listen becomes a schedule of interruptions; a visitor leaves the website to enjoy what it recommended.
Passage actions
1 And I shit you not, the Society installed a little bell to invite attentive listening.
Passage actions
2 Visitors liked it.
Passage actions
3 The Office of Excellent Intentions therefore proposed a bell each hour, a smaller bell between bells, and an alert whenever someone had missed a bell.
Passage actions
4 The reports showed a considerable increase in attention to the reports.
Passage actions
5 A visitor read a lesson about enjoying an ordinary evening and closed the page.
Passage actions
6 The clerk marked this as a loss.
Passage actions
7 But the visitor had gone to listen to a favorite piece of music.
Passage actions
8 Another had turned off the sound altogether.
Passage actions
9 A third stayed to read, which was also permitted.
Passage actions
10 When the keeper understood this, she asked what the website existed to make possible.
Passage actions
11 The Office proposed further research into the sacred value of remaining on the website.
Passage actions
12 She kept useful reminders and removed the invented urgency.
Passage actions
13 For an invitation that cannot tolerate an ending hath begun to resemble a demand.
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14 And the little bell was allowed, at last, to finish ringing.
Passage actions
An invitation should be able to tolerate an ending.
Passage actions
TRY IT Finish an activity on purpose, whether that means staying or leaving.
Passage actions
READING CONVERSATION Letters 12–13, 22; pp. 25–28, 27–28, 45–46.