| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voice of the City by O. Henry: soms, of gallops in the stilly night that Apollo would
have forsaken his daytime steeds to enjoy; he read
them the great, rough epic of the cattle and the hills
that have not been spoiled by the band of man, the
mason. His words were a telescope to the city men,
whose eyes had looked upon Youngstown, O., and
whose tongues had called it "West."
In fact, Emerson had them "going."
The next morning at ten he met Vuyning, by ap-
pointment, at a Forty-second Street cafe.
Emerson was to leave for the West that day. He
The Voice of the City |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: almost quite as difficult to effect a severance of the true from the false
as it is to extract a Diana or a Minerva from a rough block of marble.
Then as to the analysis of the ancients and the algebra of the moderns,
besides that they embrace only matters highly abstract, and, to
appearance, of no use, the former is so exclusively restricted to the
consideration of figures, that it can exercise the understanding only on
condition of greatly fatiguing the imagination; and, in the latter, there
is so complete a subjection to certain rules and formulas, that there
results an art full of confusion and obscurity calculated to embarrass,
instead of a science fitted to cultivate the mind. By these considerations
I was induced to seek some other method which would comprise the
Reason Discourse |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Voice of the City by O. Henry: ish. I told you this must come first. Write it to-
night and put it under my door when it is done. Put
it under my door to-night when it is finished --
don't keep it until to-morrow."
I was reading my bully old pal Montaigne at two
o'clock when I beard the sheets rustle under my door.
I gathered them up and read the story.
The hissing of geese, the languishing cooing of
doves, the braying of donkeys, the chatter of irre-
sponsible sparrows - these were in my mind's ear as
I read. "Suffering Sappho!" I exclaimed to myself.
The Voice of the City |
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 Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: there the rivers ran; and where he struck with his foot, there
rose ponds of good water; and when he blew through his trunk,--
thus,--the trees fell. That was the manner in which the Jungle
was made by Tha; and so the tale was told to me."
"It has not lost fat in the telling," Bagheera whispered, and
Mowgli laughed behind his hand.
"In those days there was no corn or melons or pepper or
sugar-cane, nor were there any little huts such as ye have
all seen; and the Jungle People knew nothing of Man, but lived
in the Jungle together, making one people. But presently they
began to dispute over their food, though there was grazing
The Second Jungle Book |
