| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: a surprising sort. They seemed to indicate that Richards had been a
claimant for the sack himself, and that Burgess had concealed that
fact and then maliciously betrayed it.
Burgess was taxed with this and stoutly denied it. And he said it
was not fair to attach weight to the chatter of a sick old man who
was out of his mind. Still, suspicion was in the air, and there was
much talk.
After a day or two it was reported that Mrs. Richards's delirious
deliveries were getting to be duplicates of her husband's.
Suspicion flamed up into conviction, now, and the town's pride in
the purity of its one undiscredited important citizen began to dim
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw: exclude them from my college if I do not approve of their
behavior."
"Just so. In most schools children are perfectly at liberty to
learn their lessons or not, just as they please; but the
principal reserves an equal liberty to whip them if they cannot
repeat their tasks."
"I do not whip my pupils," said Miss Wilson indignantly. "The
comparison is an outrage."
"But you expel them; and, as they are devoted to you and to the
place, expulsion is a dreaded punishment. Yours is the old system
of making laws and enforcing them by penalties, and the
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: certainly a castle on that mountain, and the hollow tree - that set
piece - I seem to miss it in the foreground. Indeed, out of this
cut-and-dry, dull, swaggering, obtrusive, and infantile art, I seem
to have learned the very spirit of my life's enjoyment; met there
the shadows of the characters I was to read about and love in a
late future; got the romance of DER FREISCHUTZ long ere I was to
hear of Weber or the mighty Formes; acquired a gallery of scenes
and characters with which, in the silent theatre of the brain, I
might enact all novels and romances; and took from these rude cuts
an enduring and transforming pleasure. Reader - and yourself?
A word of moral: it appears that B. Pollock, late J. Redington, No.
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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 Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: gladly know if it he as good to the taste as I have heard it reputed."
"It is even better," I replied; "as you shall find, if you will but
try it."
Then a curious impulse came to me, to which I yielded with as little
hesitation or misgiving, at the time, as if it were the most natural
thing in the world.
"You seem a stranger in this part of the country, sir," said I; "but
unless I am mistaken you are no stranger to me. Did you not use to
go a-fishing in the New River, with honest Nat. and R. Roe, many
years ago? And did they not call you Izaak Walton?"
His eyes smiled pleasantly at me and a little curve of merriment
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