| 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: though different from ours both in paper and binding, as well,
of course, as in type. We examined them curiously.
"Shades of Sauveur!" muttered Terry. "We're to learn the language!"
We were indeed to learn the language, and not only that, but
to teach our own. There were blank books with parallel columns,
neatly ruled, evidently prepared for the occasion, and in these,
as fast as we learned and wrote down the name of anything, we
were urged to write our own name for it by its side.
The book we had to study was evidently a schoolbook, one
in which children learned to read, and we judged from this, and
from their frequent consultation as to methods, that they had
Herland |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: (SNEEZES). Halloa, this bone dust is (SNEEZES)--why it's
(SNEEZES)--yes it's (SNEEZES)--bless my soul, it won't let me speak!
This is what an old fellow gets now for working in dead lumber. Saw
a live tree, and you don't get this dust; amputate a live bone, and
you don't get it (SNEEZES). Come, come, you old Smut, there, bear a
hand, and let's have that ferule and buckle-screw; I'll be ready
for them presently. Lucky now (SNEEZES) there's no knee-joint to
make; that might puzzle a little; but a mere shinbone--why it's
easy as making hop-poles; only I should like to put a good finish on.
Time, time; if I but only had the time, I could turn him out as neat
a leg now as ever (SNEEZES) scraped to a lady in a parlor. Those
Moby Dick |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: for Walker that he was either a just witness or an indulgent
judge. At least, in a merely human character, Haddo comes
off not wholly amiss in the matter of these Traquairs: not
that he showed any graces of the Christian, but had a sort of
Pagan decency, which might almost tempt one to be concerned
about his sudden, violent, and unprepared fate.
HEATHERCAT
CHAPTER II - FRANCIE
FRANCIE was eleven years old, shy, secret, and rather
childish of his age, though not backward in schooling, which
had been pushed on far by a private governor, one M'Brair, a
|
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 Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: which, in its dare-devil impudence of rough-and-tumble vegetation,
beat the pretty-behaved flower-beds of the Public Garden as
ignominiously as a group of young tatterdemalions playing pitch-
and-toss beats a row of Sunday-school-boys with their teacher at
their head.
But then the Professor has one of his burrows in that region, and
puts everything in high colors relating to it. That is his way
about everything. I hold any man cheap, - he said, - of whom
nothing stronger can be uttered than that all his geese are swans.
- How is that, Professor? - said I; - I should have set you down
for one of that sort. - Sir, - said he, - I am proud to say, that
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
