| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: "Why it's too bad!" the girl exclaimed with the face of an angel.
"It's the first time I was ever called crude!" she laughed.
I followed up my advantage. "There's a lady with him now who's a
terrible complication, and who yet hasn't read, I'm sure, ten pages
he ever wrote."
My visitor's wide eyes grew tenderer. "Then how does she talk - ?"
"Without ceasing. I only mention her as a single case. Do you
want to know how to show a superlative consideration? Simply avoid
him."
"Avoid him?" she despairingly breathed.
"Don't force him to have to take account of you; admire him in
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: The dentist had paused abruptly on the crest of a canyon.
Cribbens, looking back, saw him standing motionless in his
tracks.
"What's up?" asked Cribbens a second time.
McTeague slowly turned his head and looked over one
shoulder, then over the other. Suddenly he wheeled sharply
about, cocking the Winchester and tossing it to his
shoulder. Cribbens ran back to his side, whipping out his
revolver.
"What is it?" he cried. "See anybody?" He peered on ahead
through the gathering twilight.
McTeague |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: congregation; and there are peculiar quavers still to be heard in
that church, and which may even be heard half a mile off, quite
to the opposite side of the mill-pond, on a still Sunday morning,
which are said to be legitimately descended from the nose of
Ichabod Crane. Thus, by divers little makeshifts, in that
ingenious way which is commonly denominated "by hook and by
crook," the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was
thought, by all who understood nothing of the labor of headwork,
to have a wonderfully easy life of it.
The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in
the female circle of a rural neighborhood; being considered a
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
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 Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: "Dissertations and Discussions." A careful study of the
arguments of these writers, and, above all, a thorough and
independent examination of the Iliad itself, will, I believe,
convince the student that this great poem is from beginning to
end the consistent production of a single author.
The arguments of those who would attribute the Iliad and
Odyssey, taken as wholes, to two different authors, rest
chiefly upon some apparent discrepancies in the mythology of
the two poems; but many of these difficulties have been
completely solved by the recent progress of the science of
comparative mythology. Thus, for example, the fact that, in
Myths and Myth-Makers |
