| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: over the American people?"
He wasn't sure.
"They've lost their grip on patriotism."
He smiled. "We did that here in 1861."
"Oh, no! You left the Union, but you loved what you considered was your
country, and you love it still. That's just my point, just my strange
discovery in Kings Port. You retain the thing we've lost. Our big men
fifty years ago thought of the country, and what they could make it; our
big men to-day think of the country and what they can make out of it.
Rather different, don't you see? When I walk about in the North, I merely
meet members of trusts or unions--according to the length of the
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: "You have spoken honestly: it is an old fashion of yours. You
believed what you said. Let me also tell you what you call God's
truth, for a moment, Margret. It will not do you harm."--He
spoke gravely, solemnly.--"When you loved me long ago, selfish,
erring as I was, you fulfilled the law of your nature; when you
put that love out of your heart, you make your duty a tawdry
sham, and your life a lie. Listen to me. I am calm."
It was calmness that made her tremble as she had not done before,
with a strange suspicion of the truth flashing on her. That she,
casing herself in her pride, her conscious righteousness, hugging
her new-found philanthropy close, had sunk to a depth of
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: "I have already said that the state could not control
intellectual production. The state might say that it had taken a
year to write the book, and the author might say it had taken
thirty. Goethe said that every bon mot of his had cost a purse
of gold. What I outline here is a national, or rather
international, system for the providing of the material needs of
men. Since a man has intellectual needs also, he will work
longer, earn more, and provide for them to his own taste and in
his own way. I live on the same earth as the majority, I wear
the same kind of shoes and sleep in the same kind of bed; but I
do not think the same kind of thoughts, and I do not wish to pay
|
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 Aesop's Fables by Aesop: contains a hundred ways of escaping my enemies."
"I have only one," said the Cat; "but I can generally manage
with that." Just at that moment they heard the cry of a pack of
hounds coming towards them, and the Cat immediately scampered up a
tree and hid herself in the boughs. "This is my plan," said the
Cat. "What are you going to do?" The Fox thought first of one
way, then of another, and while he was debating the hounds came
nearer and nearer, and at last the Fox in his confusion was caught
up by the hounds and soon killed by the huntsmen. Miss Puss, who
had been looking on, said:
"Better one safe way than a hundred on which
Aesop's Fables |
