Be that as it might, she knew many things seemed loosening from the
narrowness and tightness of her character, sloughing away like scales,
exposing a new and strange and susceptible softness of fiber. And this
blank habit of mind, when she did not think, and now realized that she was
not dreaming, seemed to be the body of Carley Burch, and her heart and soul
stripped of a shell. Nerve and emotion and spirit received something from
her surroundings. She absorbed her environment. She felt. It was a
delightful state. But when her own consciousness caused it to elude her,
then she both resented and regretted. Anything that approached permanent
attachment to this crude and untenanted West Carley would not tolerate for
a moment. Reluctantly she admitted it had bettered her health, quickened
her blood, and quite relegated Florida and the Adirondacks, to little
consideration.
"Well, as I told Glenn," soliloquized Carley, "every time I'm almost won
over a little to Arizona she gives me a hard jolt. I'm getting near being
mushy today. Now let's see what I'll get. I suppose that's my pessimism or
materialism. Funny how Glenn keeps saying its the jolts, the hard knocks,
the fights that are best to remember afterward.
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