THE VISION SPLENDID

by William MacLeod Raine




CHAPTER 1

Of all the remote streams of influence that pour both before and
after birth into the channel of our being, what an insignificant
few--and these only the more obvious--are traceable at all. We
swim in a sea of environment and heredity, are tossed hither and
thither by we know not what cross currents of Fate, are tugged at
by a thousand eddies of which we never dream. The sum of it all
makes Life, of which we know so little and guess so much, into
which we dive so surely in those buoyant days before time and tide
have shaken confidence in our power to snatch success and
happiness from its mysterious depths.
--From the Note Book of a Dreamer.


A REBEL IN THE MAKING

Part 1

The air was mellow with the warmth of the young spring sun.
Locusts whirred in rhapsody. Bluebirds throbbed their love songs
joyously. The drone of insects, the shimmer of hear, were in the
atmosphere. One could almost see green things grow. To confine