| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: the harmonious composition of the words, syllables, letters, accents,
quantities, rhythms, rhymes, varieties and contrasts of all sorts. The
poet with his 'Break, break, break' or his e pasin nekuessi
kataphthimenoisin anassein or his 'longius ex altoque sinum trahit,' can
produce a far finer music than any crude imitations of things or actions in
sound, although a letter or two having this imitative power may be a lesser
element of beauty in such passages. The same subtle sensibility, which
adapts the word to the thing, adapts the sentence or cadence to the general
meaning or spirit of the passage. This is the higher onomatopea which has
banished the cruder sort as unworthy to have a place in great languages and
literatures.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: reference to my experimental memoranda whether it was in July or
August. I was working with a new and more bird-like aeroplane
with wing curvatures studied from Lilienthal, Pilcher and
Phillips, that I thought would give a different rhythm for the
pitching oscillations than anything I'd had before. I was
soaring my long course from the framework on the old barrow by my
sheds down to Tinker's Corner. It is a clear stretch of
downland, except for two or three thickets of box and thorn to
the right of my course; one transverse trough, in which there is
bush and a small rabbit warren, comes in from the east. I had
started, and was very intent on the peculiar long swoop with
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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 The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: that's the end of the story!"
At sunset, amid the flames dyeing the sky with vivid,
variegated colors, they descried a group of houses up
in the heart of the blue mountains. Demetrio ordered
them to carry him there.
These proved to be a few wretched straw huts, dis-
persed all over the river slopes, between rows of young
sprouting corn and beans. They lowered the stretcher
and Demetrio, in a weak voice, asked for a glass of
water.
Groups of squalid Indians sat in the dark pits of the
The Underdogs |
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 Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the
earth."
With these words, so brief, so simple, so full of reverent
feeling, he set aside the place of strife to be the resting place
of heroes, and then went back to his own great task--for which
he, too, was to give "the last full measure of devotion."
Up to within a very short time little had been heard about
Ulysses S. Grant, the man destined to become the most successful
general of the war. Like General McClellan, he was a graduate of
West Point; and also like McClellan, he had resigned from the
army after serving gallantly in the Mexican war. There the
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