| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: conceivably it was an empty ritual but it was seemingly the only
assimilative, traditionary bulwark against the decay of morals.
Until the great mobs could be educated into a moral sense some
one must cry: "Thou shalt not!" Yet any acceptance was, for the
present, impossible. He wanted time and the absence of ulterior
pressure. He wanted to keep the tree without ornaments, realize
fully the direction and momentum of this new start.
The afternoon waned from the purging good of three o'clock to the
golden beauty of four. Afterward he walked through the dull ache
of a setting sun when even the clouds seemed bleeding and at
twilight he came to a graveyard. There was a dusky, dreamy smell
This Side of Paradise |
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 An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw: tempted to drownd you,' he sez, 'and wot a shock that would be to
your parents! ' 'Oh, yes, very likely,' I sez, jes' like that.
Then I went away, because he knows Mr. Wickens, and I was afeerd
of his telling on me."
The boy being now subdued, questions were put to him from all
sides. But his powers of observation and description went no
further. As he was anxious to propitiate his captors, he answered
as often as possible in the affirmative. Mr. Jansenius asked him
whether the young woman he had seen was a lady, and he said yes.
Was the man a laborer? Yes--after a moment's hesitation. How was
she dressed? He hadn't taken notice. Had she red flowers in her
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