| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: such ingenious infelicity that it can be depended upon to convey
misinformation every time it is uncarefully unread:
By the Salic law no woman or descendant of a woman could
occupy the throne.
To show how far a child can travel in history with judicious
and diligent boosting in the public school, we select the
following mosaic:
Abraham Lincoln was born in Wales in 1599.
In the chapter headed "Intellectual" I find a great number of most
interesting statements. A sample or two may be found not amiss:
Bracebridge Hall was written by Henry Irving.
What is Man? |
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 The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: painted and read together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to
the wild improvisations of his speaking guitar. And thus, as a
closer and still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly
into the recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive
the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which
darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon
all objects of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing
radiation of gloom.
I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours
I thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher. Yet I
should fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact
The Fall of the House of Usher |
