| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Young Forester by Zane Grey: lost. For a moment I felt faint, but I fought it off. I had to think of
myself. It was every one for himself, and perhaps there was many a man
caught on Penetier with only a slender chance for life.
"Oh! oh!" I cried, suddenly. "Herky, Bud, and Bill tied helpless in that
cabin! Dick forgot them. They'll be burned to death!"
As I stood there, trembling at the thought of Herky and his comrades bound
hand and foot, the first roar of the forest fire reached my ears. It
threatened, but it roused my courage. I jumped as if I had been shot, and
clattered down that crag with wings guiding my long leaps. No crevice or
jumble of loose stones or steep descent daunted me. I reached the horse,
and, grasping the bridle, I started to lead him. We had zigzagged up, we
The Young Forester |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases,
can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice.
At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy
of the government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people,
is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court,
the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties
in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers,
having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands
of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon
the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink
to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: argument is often a sort of dialectical fiction, by which he conducts
himself and others to his own ideal of life and action. And we may
sometimes wish that we could have suggested answers to his antagonists, or
pointed out to them the rocks which lay concealed under the ambiguous terms
good, pleasure, and the like. But it would be as useless to examine his
arguments by the requirements of modern logic, as to criticise this ideal
from a merely utilitarian point of view. If we say that the ideal is
generally regarded as unattainable, and that mankind will by no means agree
in thinking that the criminal is happier when punished than when
unpunished, any more than they would agree to the stoical paradox that a
man may be happy on the rack, Plato has already admitted that the world is
|
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 Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: trust any man. I do not covet thy lands, as thou hast
coveted mine; and whether thou art any better or any
worse than any other black Angevin thief, it is for thy
King to find out. Therefore, go back to thy King, Fulke."
"'And thou wilt say nothing of what has passed?" said Fulke.
"'Why should I? Thy son will stay with me. If the King
calls me again to leave Pevensey, which I must guard
against England's enemies; if the King sends his men
against me for a traitor; or if I hear that the King in his bed
thinks any evil of me or my two knights, thy son will be
hanged from out this window, Fulke."'
|
