| 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: her darkly.
"Father Fitzpatrick in? I'm Fanny Brandeis."
"The reverend father is busy," and the glass door began to
close.
"Who is it?" boomed a voice from within. "Who're you
turning away, Casey?"
"A woman, not a parishioner." The door was almost shut now.
Footsteps down the hall. "Good! Let her in." The door
opened ever so reluctantly. Father Fitzpatrick loomed up
beside his puny assistant, dwarfing him. He looked sharply
at the figure on the porch. "For the love of--! Casey,
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: she brought forth the common ancestors of us and of the departed, is that
she provided the means of support for her offspring. For as a woman proves
her motherhood by giving milk to her young ones (and she who has no
fountain of milk is not a mother), so did this our land prove that she was
the mother of men, for in those days she alone and first of all brought
forth wheat and barley for human food, which is the best and noblest
sustenance for man, whom she regarded as her true offspring. And these are
truer proofs of motherhood in a country than in a woman, for the woman in
her conception and generation is but the imitation of the earth, and not
the earth of the woman. And of the fruit of the earth she gave a plenteous
supply, not only to her own, but to others also; and afterwards she made
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Princess of Parms by Edgar Rice Burroughs: are a midget and yet you can kill a mighty warrior with one
blow of your fist. And now you are reported to have been
plotting to escape with another prisoner of another race; a
prisoner who, from her own admission, half believes you are
returned from the valley of Dor. Either one of these accusations,
if proved, would be sufficient grounds for your execution,
but we are a just people and you shall have a trial on our
return to Thark, if Tal Hajus so commands.
"But," he continued, in his fierce guttural tones, "if you
run off with the red girl it is I who shall have to account to
Tal Hajus; it is I who shall have to face Tars Tarkas, and
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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 Menexenus by Plato: rejected, such as the Greater Hippias and the Cleitophon, may be genuine.
The nature and object of these semi-Platonic writings require more careful
study and more comparison of them with one another, and with forged
writings in general, than they have yet received, before we can finally
decide on their character. We do not consider them all as genuine until
they can be proved to be spurious, as is often maintained and still more
often implied in this and similar discussions; but should say of some of
them, that their genuineness is neither proven nor disproven until further
evidence about them can be adduced. And we are as confident that the
Epistles are spurious, as that the Republic, the Timaeus, and the Laws are
genuine.
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