title: The Minimal Self: Psychic Survival in Troubled Times
author:  Christopher Lasch 
description: Christopher Lasch (19321994), professor of history at the University of Rochester, wrote, among many other works, The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics and the best-selling Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy.
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  ##### www.blackmask.com
  
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  David Swan
  
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  # David Swan
  
  
  ### Nathaniel Hawthorne
  
  
  This page copyright © 2002 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
    
  
  
  ### DAVID SWAN. A FANTASY.
  
  
  We can be but partially acquainted even with the events which
  
  
  actually influence our course through life, and our final destiny.
  
  
  There are innumerable other events, if such they may be called, which
  
  
  come close upon us, yet pass away without actual results, or even
  
  
  betraying their near approach by the reflection of any light or shadow
  
  
  across our minds. Could we know all the vicissitudes of our fortunes,
  
  
  life would be too full of hope and fear, exultation or disappointment,
  
  
  to afford us a single hour of true serenity. This idea may be
  
  
  illustrated by a page from the secret history of David Swan.
  
  
  We have nothing to do with David, until we find him, at the age of
  
  
  twenty, on the high road from his native place to the city of Boston,
  
  
  where his uncl