| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: Nations do not like each other, never have liked each other; and it may
very well be that school textbooks help this inclination to dislike.
Certainly we know what contempt and hatred for other nations the Germans
have been sedulously taught in their schools, and how utterly they
believed their teaching. How much better and wiser for the whole world if
all the boys and girls in all the schools everywhere were henceforth to
be started in life with a just and true notion of all flags and the
peoples over whom they fly! The League of Nations might not then rest
upon the quicksand of distrust and antagonism which it rests upon today.
But it is our own school histories that are my present concern, and I
repeat my opinion--or rather my conviction--that the way in which they
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: will permit me, I will return."
"PERMIT you? I BESEECH you."
The superior and Mme. Bonacieux retired.
Milady remained alone, with her eyes fixed upon the door. An instant
later, the jingling of spurs was heard upon the stairs, steps drew near,
the door opened, and a man appeared.
Milady uttered a cry of joy; this man was the Comte de Rochefort--the
demoniacal tool of his Eminence.
62 TWO VARIETIES OF DEMONS
"Ah," cried Milady and Rochefort together, "it is you!"
"Yes, it is I."
The Three Musketeers |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: or rather boys, who meant to become scholars, had a cruel life of
it, cast desperately out on the wide world to beg and starve, either
into self-restraint and success, or into ruin of body and soul. And
a cruel life George had. Within two years he was down in a severe
illness, his uncle dead, his supplies stopped; and the boy of
sixteen got home, he does not tell how. Then he tried soldiering;
and was with Albany's French Auxiliaries at the ineffectual attack
on Wark Castle. Marching back through deep snow, he got a fresh
illness, which kept him in bed all winter. Then he and his brother
were sent to St. Andrews, where he got his B.A. at nineteen. The
next summer he went to France once more; and "fell," he says, "into
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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 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: attend women, porters' wives or daughters, ready to take in
such things for their respective people that employ them.
It happened very oddly that I was standing at the inn gate, and
a woman that had stood there before, and which was the
porter's wife belonging to the Barnet stage-coach, having
observed me, asked if I waited for any of the coaches. I told
her Yes, I waited for my mistress, that was coming to go to
Barnet. She asked me who was my mistress, and I told her
any madam's name that came next me; but as it seemed, I
happened upon a name, a family of which name lived at
Hadley, just beyond Barnet.
Moll Flanders |
