| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: most part, relate to human actions, and it is man, not nature, who
is responsible for the omission in question. After all, it does
seem more fitting to say, "I am ignorant of everything," than
"I know nothing." It is indeed you who are wanting, not the thing.
The question of verbs leads us to another matter bearing on the
subject of impersonality; namely, the arrangement of the words in a
Japanese sentence. The Tartar mode of grammatical construction is
very nearly the inverse of our own. The fundamental rule of
Japanese syntax is, that qualifying words precede the words they
qualify; that is, an idea is elaborately modified before it is so
much as expressed. This practice places the hearer at some awkward
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: required to look into the private concerns of a very young man who has
bewitched my little girl by a glance. He is, I suppose, one of those
men who have an eye for a woman," said he to himself, using an
expression of a language of his own, in which his observations, or
Corentin's, were summed up in words that were anything rather than
classical, but, for that very reason, energetic and picturesque.
The Baron de Nucingen, when he went in, was an altered man; he
astonished his household and his wife by showing them a face full of
life and color, so cheerful did he feel.
"Our shareholders had better look out for themselves," said du Tillet
to Rastignac.
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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 Jolly Corner by Henry James: It was with these considerations that his present attention was
charged - they perfectly availed to make what he saw portentous.
He COULDN'T, by any lapse, have blocked that aperture; and if he
hadn't, if it was unthinkable, why what else was clear but that
there had been another agent? Another agent? - he had been
catching, as he felt, a moment back, the very breath of him; but
when had he been so close as in this simple, this logical, this
completely personal act? It was so logical, that is, that one
might have TAKEN it for personal; yet for what did Brydon take it,
he asked himself, while, softly panting, he felt his eyes almost
leave their sockets. Ah this time at last they WERE, the two, the
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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 One Basket by Edna Ferber: the world than that."
For a moment his face took on a glow from the warmth of her own
inspiring personality. But it died again. When they rose to go,
his shoulders drooped again, his muscles sagged. At the doorway
he paused a moment, awkward in farewell. He blushed a little,
stammered.
"Emma--I always wanted to tell you. God knows it was luck for
you the way it turned out--but I always wanted to----"
She took his hand again in her firm grip at that, and her kindly,
bright brown eyes were on him. "I never held it against you,
Ben. I had to live a long time to understand it. But I never
One Basket |
