| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: They became accustomed to their surroundings. Worst of all,
Trina lost her pretty ways and her good looks. The combined
effects of hard work, avarice, poor food, and her husband's
brutalities told on her swiftly. Her charming little figure
grew coarse, stunted, and dumpy. She who had once been of a
catlike neatness, now slovened all day about the room
in a dirty flannel wrapper, her slippers clap-clapping after
her as she walked. At last she even neglected her hair, the
wonderful swarthy tiara, the coiffure of a queen, that
shaded her little pale forehead. In the morning she braided
it before it was half combed, and piled and coiled it about
McTeague |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: the man. "And if I am to be hanged let me be hanged."
"Why!" cried the Earl, "will you set your neck against a shoe of a
horse, and it rusty?"
"In my thought," said the man, "one thing is as good as another in
this world and a shoe of a horse will do."
"This can never be," thought the Earl; and he stood and looked upon
the man, and bit his beard.
And the man looked up at him and smiled. "It was so my fathers did
in the ancient ages," quoth he to the Earl, "and I have neither a
better reason nor a worse."
"There is no sense in any of this," thought the Earl, "and I must
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: seek?
Very true, he said.
Then now, said Socrates, let us recapitulate the argument. First, is not
love of something, and of something too which is wanting to a man?
Yes, he replied.
Remember further what you said in your speech, or if you do not remember I
will remind you: you said that the love of the beautiful set in order the
empire of the gods, for that of deformed things there is no love--did you
not say something of that kind?
Yes, said Agathon.
Yes, my friend, and the remark was a just one. And if this is true, Love
|
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 Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: walls there was hung a picture of the Benicia Boy, and close by,
Pio Nono, crook in hand, with the usual inscription, "Feed my
sheep." The Doctor looked at it.
" `Tu es Petrus, et super hanc'---- Good God! what IS truth?" he
muttered, bitterly.
He dragged her closer to the women, through the darkness and foul
smell.
"Look in their faces," he whispered. "There is not one of them
that is not a living lie. Can they help it? Think of the
centuries of serfdom and superstition through which their blood
has crawled. Come closer,--here."
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
