| 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: of conventional arbitrament or reference to which the United States will
not be willing to submit." This, some two years later, Russell recalled,
saying in reply to a statement of our grievances by Adams: "It appears to
Her Majesty's Government that there are but two questions by which the
claim of compensation could be tested; the one is, Have the British
Government acted with due diligence, or, in other words, in good faith
and honesty, in the maintenance of the neutrality they proclaimed? The
other is, Have the law officers of the Crown properly understood the
foreign enlistment act, when they declined, in June 1862, to advise the
detention and seizure of the Alabama, and on other occasions when they
were asked to detain other ships, building or fitting in British ports?
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: reconcile the outstanding inconsistencies in him? For his every
inflection, every motion, proclaimed the strain of good blood
gone wrong and trampled under foot of set, sardonic purpose,
indicated him a man of culture in a hell of his own choosing.
Lounging on his elbow in the flickering shadows, so carelessly
insouciant in every picturesque inch of him, he seemed to radiate
the melodrama of the untamed frontier, just as her guest of
tarnished reputation now at the ranch seemed to breathe forth its
romance.
"Sleep well, little partner. Don't be afraid; nothing can harm
you," this man had told her.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: the swat thereof," as the British public schoolboy says, and no
doubt we shall get them when we have sufficiently felt the need
for them. The big Caproni machines which the Italians possess
are of 300 h.p. and will presently be of 500h.p. One gets up a
gangway into them was one gets into a yacht; they wave a main
deck, a forward machine gun deck and an aft machine gun; one may
walk about in them; in addition to guns and men they carry a very
considerable weight of bombs beneath. They cannot of course
beget up with the speed nor soar to the height of our smaller
aeroplanes; it is as carriers in raids behind a force of fighting
machines that they should find their use.
|
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 Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: those plain shirtwaist things, with high collars, like my mother
wears back home?"
Sophy's teeth came together with a click. She laughed a short
cruel little laugh. "Say, Pink Cheeks, did yuh ever do a washin'
from seven to twelve, after you got home from work in the evenin'?
It's great! 'Specially when you're living in a six-by-ten room
with all the modern inconveniences, includin' no water except on
the third floor down. Simple! Say, a child could work it. All
you got to do, when you get home so tired your back teeth ache, is
to haul your water, an' soak your clothes, an' then rub 'em till
your hands peel, and rinse 'em, an' boil 'em, and blue 'em, an'
Buttered Side Down |
