| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: to say by-and-bye--I will say nothing now.
Chapter 2.XXIX.
Of all the tracts my father was at the pains to procure and study in
support of his hypothesis, there was not any one wherein he felt a more
cruel disappointment at first, than in the celebrated dialogue between
Pamphagus and Cocles, written by the chaste pen of the great and venerable
Erasmus, upon the various uses and seasonable applications of long noses.--
Now don't let Satan, my dear girl, in this chapter, take advantage of any
one spot of rising ground to get astride of your imagination, if you can
any ways help it; or if he is so nimble as to slip on--let me beg of you,
like an unback'd filly, to frisk it, to squirt it, to jump it, to rear it,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Danny's Own Story by Don Marquis: And each woman took hern. And one woman,
a-sipping of hern, she says:
"The departed had his good pints, Elmira."
Which was the best thing had been said of Hank
in that town fur years and years.
Old Mis' Primrose, she always prided herself
on being honest, no matter what come, and she ups
and says:
"I don't believe in no hippercritics at a time like
this, no more'n no other time. The departed
wasn't no good, and the hull town knowed it; and
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: the desire of living after their own manner without observation,
and of lying hid in the obscurity of multitudes; for in a city
populous as Cairo it is possible to obtain at the same time the
gratifications of society and the secrecy of solitude.
"From Cairo I travelled to Suez, and embarked on the Red Sea,
passing along the coast till I arrived at the port from which I had
departed twenty years before. Here I joined myself to a caravan,
and re-entered my native country.
"I now expected the caresses of my kinsmen and the congratulations
of my friends, and was not without hope that my father, whatever
value he had set upon riches, would own with gladness and pride a
|
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 The Vision Splendid by William MacLeod Raine: gathering of news tends to sharpen the wits it makes also for the
superficial. Alertness, cleverness, persistence, a nose for news,
and a surface accuracy were the chief qualities demanded of him by
the office. He had only to look around him to see that the
profession was full of keen-eyed, nimble-witted old-young men who
had never attempted to synthesize the life they were supposed to
be recording and interpreting. While at work they were always
in a hurry, for to-day's news is dead to-morrow. They wrote on the
run, without time for thought or reflection. Knowing beyond their
years, the fruit of their wisdom was cynicism. Their knowledge
withered for lack of roots.
|
