| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: water rolled in--a long, low, white, creeping line that softly roared on
the beach and dragged the pebbles gratingly back. There was neither boat
nor living creature in sight.
Carley felt the scene ease a clutching hand within her breast. Here was
loneliness and solitude vastly different from that of Oak Creek Canyon, yet
it held the same intangible power to soothe. The swish of the surf, the
moan of the wind in the evergreens, were voices that called to her. How
many more miles of lonely land than peopled cities! Then the sea-how vast!
And over that the illimitable and infinite sky, and beyond, the endless
realms of space. It helped her somehow to see and hear and feel the eternal
presence of nature. In communion with nature the significance of life might
The Call of the Canyon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: I wonder you don't send us your cards in an envelope. When you do, pray have
them with black edges; it will be for the death of my last illusion."
It was in this incisive strain that Mrs. Tristram moralized over Newman's
so-called neglect, which was in reality a most exemplary constancy.
Of course she was joking, but there was always something ironical
in her jokes, as there was always something jocular in her gravity.
"I know no better proof that I have treated you very well,"
Newman had said, "than the fact that you make so free with my character.
Familiarity breeds contempt; I have made myself too cheap.
If I had a little proper pride I would stay away a while,
and when you asked me to dinner say I was going to the Princess
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: fortified camp of the proprieties. They can touch a subject and
suppress it. The most adroit employ a somewhat elaborate reserve
as a means to be frank, much as they wear gloves when they shake
hands. But a man has the full responsibility of his freedom,
cannot evade a question, can scarce be silent without rudeness,
must answer for his words upon the moment, and is not seldom left
face to face with a damning choice, between the more or less
dishonourable wriggling of Deronda and the downright woodenness of
Vernon Whitford.
But the superiority of women is perpetually menaced; they do not
sit throned on infirmities like the old; they are suitors as well
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