| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: and when he came home he couldn't find his father's old silver watch
that don't keep time and he thinks so much of, and couldn't remember
what he did with it three or four days ago when he saw it last,
and when I suggested that it probably wasn't lost but stolen,
it put him in a regular passion, and he said I was a fool--
which convinced me, without any trouble, that that was just what he
was afraid _had_ happened, himself, but did not want to believe it,
because lost things stand a better chance of being found again
than stolen ones."
"Whe-ew!" whistled Wilson. "Score another one the list."
"Another what?"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: Yes, indeed, Socrates; there are a great many things which they hinder me
from doing.
What do you mean? I said. Do they want you to be happy, and yet hinder you
from doing what you like? for example, if you want to mount one of your
father's chariots, and take the reins at a race, they will not allow you to
do so--they will prevent you?
Certainly, he said, they will not allow me to do so.
Whom then will they allow?
There is a charioteer, whom my father pays for driving.
And do they trust a hireling more than you? and may he do what he likes
with the horses? and do they pay him for this?
Lysis |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: matched her hat, and heels and gloves and complexion and hair.
"Thirteen thousand! Thirteen thous---- Say, isn't it chilly
on this corner, h'm? I know a kind of a restaurant just around the
corner where----"
"It's no use," said the sandy-haired man, gently. "And I
wouldn't have said that, if I were you. I was going back to-day
on the 5:25, but I'm sick of it all. So are you, or you wouldn't
have said what you just said. Listen. Let's go back home, you and
I. The sight of a Navajo blanket nauseates me. The thought of
those prairies makes my eyes ache. I know that if I have to eat
one more meal cooked by that Chink of mine I'll hang him by his own
Buttered Side Down |
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 Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: behind, to mark where he had shook his wings. My husband's renewed
caresses then became hateful to me; his brutality was tolerable,
compared to his distasteful fondness. Still, compassion, and the
fear of insulting his supposed feelings, by a want of sympathy,
made me dissemble, and do violence to my delicacy. What a task!
"Those who support a system of what I term false refinement,
and will not allow great part of love in the female, as well as
male breast, to spring in some respects involuntarily, may not
admit that charms are as necessary to feed the passion, as virtues
to convert the mellowing spirit into friendship. To such observers
I have nothing to say, any more than to the moralists, who insist
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