Image Study 4

“They rode out along the fenceline and across the open pasture-land. The leather creaked in the morning cold. They pushed the horses into a lope. The light fell away behind them. They rode out on the high prairie where they slowed the horses to a walk and the stars swarmed around them out of the blackness. They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode not under but among them and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing” (30).

This picture depicts the ‘ten thousand worlds for the choosing” perfectly. Cole can go anywhere, and all he needs is his horses. The horses are the only things that matter to him at the beginning of the book. However, this picture doesn’t focus on the horses. It focuses on the land-the endless land. Cole is searching for meaning of life, and this pictures shows how he has endless opportunities of where to go and what to do to find what he is looking for.

http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/books/