| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: anything could fly--with wings. Then we would lead such a man out and
show him six, eight, ten square miles of green crops; and he, if he was
thoroughly nasty, would mention that Wyoming contained ninety-five
thousand square miles, all waiting for irrigation and Eden. One of these
Eastern supercivilized hostiles from New York was breakfasting with the
Governor and me at the Cheyenne Club, and we were explaining to him the
glorious future, the coming empire, of the Western country. Now the
Governor was about thirty-two, and until twenty-five had never gone West
far enough to see over the top of the Alleghany Mountains. I was not a
pioneer myself; and why both of us should have pitied the New-Yorker's
narrowness so hard I cannot see. But we did. We spoke to him of the size
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: No better model need be sought, nor could have been found, of
a very high order of respectability, which, by some indescribable
magic, not merely expressed itself in his looks and gestures, but
even governed the fashion of his garments, and rendered them all
proper and essential to the man. Without appearing to differ,
in any tangible way, from other people's clothes, there was yet a
wide and rich gravity about them that must have been a characteristic
of the wearer, since it could not be defined as pertaining either
to the cut or material. His gold-headed cane, too,--a serviceable
staff, of dark polished wood,--had similar traits, and, had it chosen
to take a walk by itself, would have been recognized anywhere as a
House of Seven Gables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tattine by Ruth Ogden [Mrs. Charles W. Ide]: doesn't need to be changed at all. But Betsy and Doctor can only be trained in
a few ways, and never to really change their nature.
"Setters have hunted rabbits always, kittens have preyed upon birds, and
donkeys, as a rule, have stood still whenever they wanted to."
"But why, I wonder, were they made so?"
"You nor I nor nohodv knows, Tattine, but isn't it fine that for some reason
we are made differently? If we will only be reasonable and try hard enough and
in the right way, we can overcome anything."
"It's a little like a sermon, Grandma Luty."
"It's a little bit of a one then, for it's over, but you go this minute and
give Betsy and Doctor a good hard hug, and tell them you forgive them."
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