/lit/ - Literature

Guys, critique appreciated.

It's a passage from a short post-postmodernist novella I'm writing. Don't be too rough, I'm new to this, but an honest opinion and cunstructive criticism welcome.

A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and
beautiful seabird. Her long slender bare legs were delicate as a crane's and pure save where an emerald trail of seaweed had fashioned itself as a sign upon the flesh. Her thighs, fuller and softhued as ivory, were bared almost to the hips where the white fringes of her drawers were like a feathering of soft white down. Her slateblue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and dovetailed behind her. Her bosom was as a bird's, soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some darkplumaged dove. But her long fair hair was girlish, girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face.

She was alone and still, gazing out to sea; and when she felt his presence and the worship of his eyes her eyes turned to him in quiet sufferance of his gaze, without shame or wantonness. Long, long she suffered his gaze and then quietly withdrew her eyes from his and bent them towards the stream, gently stirring the water with her foot hither and thither. The first faint noise of gently moving water broke the silence, low and faint and whispering, faint as the bells of sleep; hither and thither, hither and thither: and a faint flame trembled on her cheek.

Life with an education is easier. Life without an education is harder.

That's it. There are no hard secrets here. You waste a few years and spend money to make your future sunnier.

If you are a very energetic and adventurous type, if you were working since 14 and have started your own business with friends by age 19, college may be a waste for you. You probably should use all the young years and money for self-education and actual business.

If you're a shut-in, or an academically-minded person, an artist that prefers to work out of comform of one's home and such - then you will highly benefit from an education, because you will be dealing with people that respect, value, expect and have education throughout your whole life.