| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: fancy any one's spirit would die out under such an
accumulation of darkness, noisomeness, and injustice, above
all when he had not come there of his own free will, but under
the cutlasses and bludgeons of the press-gang. But perhaps a
watch on deck in the sharp sea air put a man on his mettle
again; a battle must have been a capital relief; and prize-
money, bloodily earned and grossly squandered, opened the
doors of the prison for a twinkling. Somehow or other, at
least, this worst of possible lives could not overlie the
spirit and gaiety of our sailors; they did their duty as
though they had some interest in the fortune of that country
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: Eleians, and Boeotians, who were assisted by the Phocians, both
sections of the Locrians, the Thessalians, Aenianians, Acarnanians,
and Euboeans; moreover, the slaves had revolted and several of the
provincial cities;[28] while of the Spartans themselves as many had
fallen on the field of Leuctra as survived. But in spite of all, he
safely guarded the city, and that too a city without walls and
bulwarks. Forbearing to engage in the open field, where the gain would
lie wholly with the enemy, he lay stoutly embattled on ground where
the citizens must reap advantage; since, as he doggedly persisted, to
march out meant to be surrounded on every side; whereas to stand at
bay where every defile gave a coign of vantage, would give him mastery
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Voice of the City by O. Henry: nishes us with our little story.
Professor Angelini praised her sketches excessively.
Once when she had made a neat study of a horse-
chestnut tree in the park he declared she would be-
come a second Rosa Bonheur. Again -- a great art-
ist has his moods -- he would say cruel and cutting
things. For example, Medora had spent an after-
noon patiently sketching the statue and the archi-
tecture at Columbus Circle. Tossing it aside with
a sneer, the professor informed her that Giotto had
once drawn a perfect circle with one sweep of his
The Voice of the City |
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 Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: of scraps an intelligent inventory of which would have revealed the
lives and habits of every dweller in the house,--bits of printed
cottons, tea-leaves, artificial flower-petals faded and worthless,
vegetable parings, papers, scraps of metal. At every sweep of her
broom the old woman bared the soul of the gutter, that black fissure
on which a porter's mind is ever bent. The poor lover examined this
scene, like a thousand others which our heaving Paris presents daily;
but he examined it mechanically, as a man absorbed in thought, when,
happening to look up, he found himself all but nose to nose with a man
who had just entered the gateway.
In appearance this man was a beggar, but not the Parisian beggar,--
Ferragus |
