| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: thatched hut. The goats were enclosed for the night in a brush corral
near by. A few kids walked the top of it, nibbling the chaparral
leaves. The old Mexican lay upon a blanket on the grass, already in a
stupor from his mescal, and dreaming, perhaps, of the nights when he
and Pizarro touched glasses to their New World fortunes--so old his
wrinkled face seemed to proclaim him to be. And in the door of the
/jacal/ stood Tonia. And Lieutenant Sandridge sat in his saddle
staring at her like a gannet agape at a sailorman.
The Cisco Kid was a vain person, as all eminent and successful
assassins are, and his bosom would have been ruffled had he known that
at a simple exchange of glances two persons, in whose minds he had
Heart of the West |
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 Philebus by Plato: right is of a far higher character--what or where to be found they cannot
always distinctly tell;--deduced from the laws of human nature, says one;
resting on the will of God, says another; based upon some transcendental
idea which animates more worlds than one, says a third:
on nomoi prokeintai upsipodes, ouranian
di aithera teknothentes.
To satisfy an imaginative nature in any degree, the doctrine of utility
must be so transfigured that it becomes altogether different and loses all
simplicity.
But why, since there are different characters among men, should we not
allow them to envisage morality accordingly, and be thankful to the great
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