| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: But Zava begged: "Tell me first, do NO women work, really?"
"Why, yes," Terry admitted. "Some have to, of the poorer sort."
"About how many--in your country?"
"About seven or eight million," said Jeff, as mischievous as ever.
CHAPTER 6
Comparisons Are Odious
I had always been proud of my country, of course. Everyone is.
Compared with the other lands and other races I knew, the United States
of America had always seemed to me, speaking modestly, as good as the
best of them.
But just as a clear-eyed, intelligent, perfectly honest, and
Herland |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: for the choice of the souls was in most cases based on their experience of
a previous life. There he saw the soul which had once been Orpheus
choosing the life of a swan out of enmity to the race of women, hating to
be born of a woman because they had been his murderers; he beheld also the
soul of Thamyras choosing the life of a nightingale; birds, on the other
hand, like the swan and other musicians, wanting to be men. The soul which
obtained the twentieth lot chose the life of a lion, and this was the soul
of Ajax the son of Telamon, who would not be a man, remembering the
injustice which was done him in the judgment about the arms. The next was
Agamemnon, who took the life of an eagle, because, like Ajax, he hated
human nature by reason of his sufferings. About the middle came the lot of
The Republic |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: "I had always fancied," the Baron faltered, "that cod were salt-water
fish?"
"Not in this country," said the Vice-Warden. "Shall we go in?
Ask my son some question on the way any subject you like!"
And the sulky boy was violently shoved forwards, to walk at the Baron's
side.
"Could your Highness tell me," the Baron cautiously began,
"how much seven times nine would come to?"
"Turn to the left!" cried the Vice-Warden, hastily stepping forwards to
show the way---so hastily, that he ran against his unfortunate guest,
who fell heavily on his face.
Sylvie and Bruno |
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 Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: Senior Subaltern, I promised a somewhat similar tale, but with all
the jest left out. This is that tale:
Dicky Hatt was kidnapped in his early, early youth--neither by
landlady's daughter, housemaid, barmaid, nor cook, but by a girl so
nearly of his own caste that only a woman could have said she was
just the least little bit in the world below it. This happened a
month before he came out to India, and five days after his one-and-
twentieth birthday. The girl was nineteen--six years older than
Dicky in the things of this world, that is to say--and, for the
time, twice as foolish as he.
Excepting, always, falling off a horse there is nothing more fatally
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