crucible quotes

Story is just just deserts†man in the crucible like jack in the box.

- Stanley Lawrence Elkin
  'The Future of the Novel', in the NewYork Times,17 Feb.

The vanity of translation; it were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principle of its colour and odour, as seek to transfuse from one language to another the creations of a poet. 786 The plant must spring again from its seed, or it will bear no flower.

- Percy Bysshe Shelley
A Defence of Poetry.

America is God's Crucible, the great Melting Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming† God is making the American.

- Israel Zangwill
  The Melting Pot.