| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: property ownersor throw bombs with the Bolshevik God! Tom, I hope
something happens. I'm restless as the devil and have a horror of
getting fat or falling in love and growing domestic.
The place at Lake Geneva is now for rent but when I land I'm
going West to see Mr. Barton and get some details. Write me care
of the Blackstone, Chicago.
S'ever, dear Boswell,
SAMUEL JOHNSON.
BOOK TWO
The Education of a Personage
CHAPTER 1
This Side of Paradise |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: to put their threats into execution. I have no space to describe
this scene, although its tragic and comic peculiarities are well
worth describing. An end was put to the _melee_, by the
captain's calling the ship's company to put the salt water
mobocrats in irons. At this determined order, the gentlemen of
the lash scampered, and for the rest of the voyage conducted
themselves very decorously.
This incident of the voyage, in two days after landing at
Liverpool, brought me at once before the British public, and that
by no act of my own. The gentlemen so promptly snubbed in their
meditated violence, flew to the press to justify their conduct,
My Bondage and My Freedom |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: among us, sacrificing the poor innocent babes, I doubt, more to
avoid the expence than the shame, which would move tears and pity
in the most savage and inhuman breast.
The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one
million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two
hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which
number I subtract thirty thousand couple, who are able to
maintain their own children, (although I apprehend there cannot
be so many, under the present distresses of the kingdom) but this
being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand
breeders. I again subtract fifty thousand, for those women who
A Modest Proposal |
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 Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: all hands out on shore to hunt for him on my own account, or, at
any rate, to hunt for the canvas sling which he had round his
body. The whole crew of the steamer, with the exception of
firemen and engineers, rushed up the jetty past the thoughtful
Almayer and vanished from my sight. The white fog swallowed them
up; and again there was a deep silence that seemed to extend for
miles up and down the stream. Still taciturn, Almayer started to
climb on board, and I went down from the bridge to meet him on
the after deck.
"Would you mind telling the captain that I want to see him very
particularly?" he asked me in a low tone, letting his eyes stray
Some Reminiscences |
