| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: Stephen, help me to be a better girl; let us be friends again."
She went back unconsciously to the old words of their quarrels
long ago. He drew back.
"Do not mock me," he gasped. "I suffer, Margret. Do not mock me
with more courtesy."
"I do not; let us be friends again."
She was crying like a penitent child; her face was turned away;
love, pure and deep, was in her eyes.
The red fire-light grew stronger; the clock hushed its noisy
ticking to hear the story. Holmes's pale lip worked: what was
this coming to him? His breast heaved, a dry heat panted in his
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: speak of religious) motives, sentence themselves to celibacy, it should not
appear improbably that a more highly evolved humanity would cheerfully
sacrifice a large proportion of its sex-life for the common weal, particular
ly in view of certain advantages to be gained. Not the least of such
advantages -- always supposing that mankind were able to control sex-life
after the natural manner of the ants -- would be a prodigious increase of
longevity. The higher types of a humanity superior to sex might be able to
realize the dream of life for a thousand years.
Already we find lives too short for the work we have to do; and with the
constantly accelerating progress of discovery, and the never-ceasing
expansion of knowledge, we shall certainly find more and more reason to
Kwaidan |
