| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: always felt in Olaf was a heavy stubbornness, like the unyielding
stickiness of wet loam against the plow. He had always found Olaf
the most difficult of his brothers.
"How do you do, Nils? Expect to stay with us long?"
"Oh, I may stay forever," Nils answered gaily. "I like this
country better than I used to."
"There's been some work put into it since you left," Olaf remarked.
"Exactly. I think it's about ready to live in now--and I'm
about ready to settle down." Nils saw his brother lower his big
head ("Exactly like a bull," he thought.) "Mother's been persuading
me to slow down now, and go in for farming," he went on lightly.
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Young Forester by Zane Grey: see, this forest-preserve business is new out here. Formerly the lumbermen
bought so much land and cut over it--skinned it. Two years ago, when the
National Forests were laid out, the lumbering men--that is, the loggers,
sawmill hands, and so on--found they did not get as much employment as
formerly. So generally they're sore on the National Forest idea."
"But, Dick, if they understand the idea of forestry they'd never oppose
it."
"Maybe. I don't understand it too well myself. I can fight fire--that's my
business; but this ranger work is new. I doubt if the Westerners will take
to forestry. There've been some shady deals all over the West because of
it. Buell, now, he's a timber shark. He bought so much timber from the
The Young Forester |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: blind man where all others see; the one groping savage in the
college of the learned, and always, during service, I feel like a
heretic in heaven.
But by no means do I ever overlook or minify the fact that
this is one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life. I
have never seen anything like this before. I have never seen
anything so great and fine and real as this devotion.
FRIDAY.--Yesterday's opera was "Parsifal" again. The others
went and they show marked advance in appreciation; but I went
hunting for relics and reminders of the Margravine Wilhelmina,
she of the imperishable "Memoirs." I am properly grateful to her
What is Man? |
