| 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: wear a little gold Triangle on his watch-chain. "Ha-Ha Hortense!"
was written over six times and had the names of nine
collaborators on the programme. All Triangle shows started by
being "something differentnot just a regular musical comedy," but
when the several authors, the president, the coach and the
faculty committee finished with it, there remained just the old
reliable Triangle show with the old reliable jokes and the star
comedian who got expelled or sick or something just before the
trip, and the dark-whiskered man in the pony-ballet, who
"absolutely won't shave twice a day, doggone it!"
There was one brilliant place in "Ha-Ha Hortense!" It is a
 This Side of Paradise |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: and the travelling was easier. It was not a primeval forest,
but a second growth of chestnuts and poplars and maples.
Through the woods there ran at intervals long lines of broken
rock, covered with moss--the ruins, evidently, of ancient
stone fences. The land must have been, in former days, a
farm, inhabited, cultivated, the home of human
hopes and desires and labours, but now relapsed into solitude
and wilderness. What could the life have been among these
rugged and inhospitable Highlands, on this niggard and
reluctant soil? Where was the house that once sheltered the
tillers of this rude corner of the earth?
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Call of the Wild by Jack London: with an assortment of boxes and parcels, upon a ferry steamer; he
was trucked off the steamer into a great railway depot, and
finally he was deposited in an express car.
For two days and nights this express car was dragged along at the
tail of shrieking locomotives; and for two days and nights Buck
neither ate nor drank. In his anger he had met the first advances
of the express messengers with growls, and they had retaliated by
teasing him. When he flung himself against the bars, quivering
and frothing, they laughed at him and taunted him. They growled
and barked like detestable dogs, mewed, and flapped their arms and
crowed. It was all very silly, he knew; but therefore the more
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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 Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: good piece of advice. You know how fatal has been and how rapidly
spread this terrible pestilence which has cruelly harassed Paris. Tell
him that you have just left the bedside of your old friend the
Archbishop of Bordeaux; thus you will make him scutter away like straw
before a whirl-wind.
"Oh, oh!" cried the cardinal, "thou meritest more than an abbey. Ah,
Ventredieu! my young friend, here are 100 golden crowns for thy
journey to the Abbey of Turpenay, which I won yesterday at cards, and
of which I make you a free gift."
Hearing these words, and seeing Philippe de Mala disappear without
giving her the amorous glances she expected, the beautiful Imperia,
 Droll Stories, V. 1 |