| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: talking socialism and even preaching socialism. Don't think I
want to be overcritical. I admit there's no end of things to be
said for a proper sort of socialism, Ruskin, and all that. We're
all Socialists nowadays. Ideals--excellent. But--it gets
misunderstood. It gives the men a sense of moral support. It
makes them fancy that they are It. Encourages them to forget
duties and set up preposterous claims. Class war and all that
sort of thing. You gentlemen of the clergy don't quite realize
that socialism may begin with Ruskin and end with Karl Marx. And
that from the Class War to the Commune is just one step."
(5)
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Danny's Own Story by Don Marquis: him down.
I thought they might myself. But I laid there,
and jest waited. If they come, I didn't want to
be found running. But they didn't come. The
two last ones had caught up with the main gang,
I guess, fur purty soon I hearn them all crossing
that plank bridge agin, and knowed they was gone.
At first I guessed the feller on the ground must
be dead. But he wasn't, fur purty soon I hearn him
groan. He had mebby been stunned by his fall,
and was coming to enough to feel his pain.
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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 Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: exercitate my pupil over those verses to-day for pronoun
practice.
TUESDAY.
Yesterday came yours. Well, well, if the dears prefer a
week, why, I'll give them ten days, but the real document,
from which I have scarcely varied, ran for one night. I
think you seem scarcely fair to Wiltshire, who had surely,
under his beast-ignorant ways, right noble qualities. And I
think perhaps you scarce do justice to the fact that this is
a place of realism A OUTRANCE; nothing extenuated or
coloured. Looked at so, is it not, with all its tragic
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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 Red Seal by Natalie Sumner Lincoln: butler," he said. "We will hear him while waiting for the Colonel."
Grimes, small and thin, with the stolid countenance of the
well-trained servant, was exceedingly short in his replies to the
coroner's questions. Yes, he had lived with the McIntyre during
their residence in Washington, something like five years, he couldn't
quite remember the exact dates. No, there was never any quarreling,
upstairs or down; it was a well-ordered household until this.
"Exactly," remarked the coroner dryly. "What about Monday night?
Tell us, Grimes, what occurred in that house between midnight
Monday and five o'clock Tuesday morning."
"Haven't much to tell," was the grumpy response. "I went upstairs
The Red Seal |
