| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: distances from one bin to another, up one aisle and down the
next, to the office, back again. Your floors are concrete,
or cement, or some such mixture, aren't they? I just
happened to think of the boy who used to deliver our paper
on Norris Street, in Winnebago, Wisconsin. He covered his
route on roller skates. It saved him an hour. Why don't
you put roller skates on your stock boys and girls?"
Fenger stared at her. You could almost hear that mind of
his working, like a thing on ball bearings. "Roller
skates." It wasn't an exclamation. It was a decision. He
pressed a buzzer--the snuff-brown secretary buzzer. "Tell
Fanny Herself |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: and our contemporaries are also good, among whom our departed friends are
to be reckoned. Then as now, and indeed always, from that time to this,
speaking generally, our government was an aristocracy--a form of government
which receives various names, according to the fancies of men, and is
sometimes called democracy, but is really an aristocracy or government of
the best which has the approval of the many. For kings we have always had,
first hereditary and then elected, and authority is mostly in the hands of
the people, who dispense offices and power to those who appear to be most
deserving of them. Neither is a man rejected from weakness or poverty or
obscurity of origin, nor honoured by reason of the opposite, as in other
states, but there is one principle--he who appears to be wise and good is a
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: island; but I fared onward to the house of Circe, and my heart
was clouded with care as I walked along. When I got to the gates
I stood there and called the goddess, and as soon as she heard
me she came down, opened the door, and asked me to come in; so I
followed her--much troubled in my mind. She set me on a richly
decorated seat inlaid with silver, there was a footstool also
under my feet, and she mixed a mess in a golden goblet for me to
drink; but she drugged it, for she meant me mischief. When she
had given it me, and I had drunk it without its charming me, she
struck me with her wand. 'There now,' she cried, 'be off to the
pigstye, and make your lair with the rest of them.'
The Odyssey |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: injustice."
"Who brings up the case?"
"Massol."
"Good."
"And our friends Giraud and Claude Vignon are on the committee," said
Bixiou.
"Say just a word to them," urged Leon; "tell them to come to-night to
Carabine's, where du Tillet gives a fete apropos of railways,--they
are plundering more than ever on the roads."
"Ah ca! but isn't your cousin from the Pyrenees?" asked the young man,
now become serious.
|
