The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: "Misfortune is liable to make me a damn bad man," he said slowly.
IN THE DROOPING HOURS
While the rain drizzled on Amory looked futilely back at the
stream of his life, all its glitterings and dirty shallows. To
begin with, he was still afraidnot physically afraid any more,
but afraid of people and prejudice and misery and monotony. Yet,
deep in his bitter heart, he wondered if he was after all worse
than this man or the next. He knew that he could sophisticate
himself finally into saying that his own weakness was just the
result of circumstances and environment; that often when he raged
This Side of Paradise |