| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: "But I've noticed," continued the older man blindly, "that you're
not very popular with the boys."
"No, sir." Amory licked his lips.
"AhI thought you might not understand exactly what it was
theyahobjected to. I'm going to tell you, because I believeahthat
when a boy knows his difficulties he's better able to cope with
themto conform to what others expect of him." He a-hemmed again
with delicate reticence, and continued: "They seem to think that
you'reahrather too fresh"
Amory could stand no more. He rose from his chair, scarcely
controlling his voice when he spoke.
This Side of Paradise |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: charm there is in watching a swift stream! The eye never wearies
of following its curls and eddies, the shadow of the waves dancing
over the stones, the strange, crinkling lines of sunlight in the
shallows. There is a sort of fascination in it, lulling and
soothing the mind into a quietude which is even pleasanter than
sleep, and making it almost possible to do that of which we so
often speak, but which we never quite accomplish--"think about
nothing." Out on the edge of the pool, we could see five or six
huge salmon, moving slowly from side to side, or lying motionless
like gray shadows. There was nothing to break the silence except
the thin clear whistle of the white-throated sparrow far back in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: spiders. The following list completes, I believe, the
terrestrial fauna: a fly (Olfersia) living on the booby, and
a tick which must have come here as a parasite on the birds;
a small brown moth, belonging to a genus that feeds on feathers;
a beetle (Quedius) and a woodlouse from beneath the dung; and
lastly, numerous spiders, which I suppose prey on these small
attendants and scavengers of the water-fowl. The often repeated
description of the stately palm and other noble tropical
plants, then birds, and lastly man, taking possession of
the coral islets as soon as formed, in the Pacific, is probably
not correct; I fear it destroys the poetry of this story, that
The Voyage of the Beagle |
