| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White: been good to me, and I've really tried, but it's no use. The
country is awful. I never ought to have come. I'm sorry you are
going to think me a bad woman, for I like you and admire you, but
nothing, NOTHING could make me stay here any longer." She
signed herself simply Estrella Sands, her maiden name.
Buck Johnson stood staring at the paper for a much longer time
than was necessary merely to absorb the meaning of the words.
His senses, sharpened by the stress of the last sixteen hours,
were trying mightily to cut to the mystery of a change going on
within himself. The phrases of the letter were bald enough, yet
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: the day, or probable day, of the Sun's rebirth be fixed?
Go out next Christmas Evening, and at midnight you will
see the brightest of the fixed stars, Sirius, blazing in the
southern sky--not however due south from you, but somewhat
to the left of the Meridian line. Some three thousand
years ago (owing to the Precession of the Equinoxes) that
star at the winter solstice did not stand at midnight where
you now see it, but almost exactly ON the meridian line.
The coming of Sirius therefore to the meridian at midnight
became the sign and assurance of the Sun having reached
the very lowest point of his course, and therefore of having
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: fountain with the whiskey. The passing of days brought a choked season of
fine sand and hard blazing sky. Heat rose up from the ground and hung
heavily over man and beast. Many insects sat out in the sun rattling with
joy; the little tearing river grew clear from the swollen mud, and shrank
to a succession of standing pools; and the fat, squatting cactus bloomed
everywhere into butter-colored flowers big as tulips in the sand. There
were artesian wells in Mesa, and the water did not taste very good; but
if you drank from the standing pools where the river had been, you
repaired to the drug-store almost immediately. A troop of wandering
players came dotting along the railroad, and, reaching Mesa, played a
brass-band up and down the street, and announced the powerful drama of
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