| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: if he were so descended, he becomes a student. Having failed to
discover in the school-room the futility of his country's
self-vaunted learning, he proceeds to devote his life to its
pursuit. With an application which is eminently praiseworthy, even
if its object be not, he sets to work to steep himself in the
classics till he can perceive no merit in anything else. As might
be suspected, he ends by discovering in the sayings of the past more
meaning than the simple past ever dreamed of putting there.
He becomes more Confucian than Confucius. Indeed, it is fortunate
for the reputation of the sage that he cannot return to earth, for
he might disagree to his detriment with his own commentators.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: mutilation, invented by some mean and vulgar mind, insensible to
the merit and perfections of the animal. On the contrary, the
Indian horses are suffered to remain in every respect the superb
and beautiful animals which nature formed them.
The wealth of an Indian of the far west consists principally in
his horses, of which each chief and warrior possesses a great
number, so that the plains about an Indian village or encampment
are covered with them. These form objects of traffic, or objects
of depredation, and in this way pass from tribe to tribe over
great tracts of country. The horses owned by the Arickaras are,
for the most part, of the wild stock of the prairies; some,
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: long; and so we exchange the solid trailblazing enterprise of Volume One
for Volume Two's electric unrest. In Volume One our wagon was hitched to
the star of liberty. Capital and labor have cut the traces. The labor
union forbids the workingman to labor as his own virile energy and skill
prompt him. If he disobeys, he is expelled and called a 'scab.' Don't let
us call ourselves the land of the free while such things go on. We're all
thinking a deal too much about our pockets nowadays. Eternal vigilance
cannot watch liberty and the ticker at the same time.
"Well," said John Mayrant, "we're not thinking about our pockets in Kings
Port, because" (and here there came into his voice and face that sudden
humor which made him so delightful)--"because we haven't got any pockets
|
