| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: families, all of gentle blood, that made up the
society of Old California; as gay, arcadian, irre-
sponsible, yet moral a society as ever fluttered over
this planet. Every house in the Presidio and val-
ley, every spare room at the Mission, opened to
them with the exuberant hospitality of the country.
The caballeros had their finest wardrobes of col-
lored silks and embroidered botas, sombreros laden
with silver, fine lawn and lace, jewel and sash, vel-
vet serape for the chill of the late afternoon. The
matrons brought their stiff robes of red and yellow
Rezanov |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Aeneid by Virgil: On this side, life and lucky chance ascends;
Loaded with death, that other scale descends.
Rais'd on the stretch, young Turnus aims a blow
Full on the helm of his unguarded foe:
Shrill shouts and clamors ring on either side,
As hopes and fears their panting hearts divide.
But all in pieces flies the traitor sword,
And, in the middle stroke, deserts his lord.
Now is but death, or flight; disarm'd he flies,
When in his hand an unknown hilt he spies.
Fame says that Turnus, when his steeds he join'd,
Aeneid |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: the head of their own government when it was thus being filched
from them? You say she was anti-foreign--would you have been
very much in love with Germany, Russia, France and England under
those circumstances? That she acted unwisely in placing herself
in the hands of the conservatives and allying herself with the
superstitious Boxers, we must all frankly admit. But what would
you have done? Might you not--I do not say you would with your
intelligence--but might you not have been induced to have
clutched at as great a log as the patriotic Boxers seemed to
present, if you had been as near drowning as she was?
"It is generally supposed," says one of her critics, "that Kang
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