| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: But, once in a way, there will come a day
When the colt must be taught to feel
The lash that falls, and the curb that galls,
and the sting of the rowelled steel.
Life's Handicap.
This is not a tale exactly. It is a Tract; and I am immensely
proud of it. Making a Tract is a Feat.
Every man is entitled to his own religious opinions; but no man--
least of all a junior--has a right to thrust these down other men's
throats. The Government sends out weird Civilians now and again;
but McGoggin was the queerest exported for a long time. He was
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: man comic papers. "Ach! That was dangerous,"
he cried. I was amused. But directly he added
with an appearance of simplicity, "The side of
your iron ship would have been crushed in like--
like this matchbox."
"Would it?" I growled, much less amused now;
but by the time I had decided that this remark was
not meant for a dig at me he had worked himself
into a high state of resentfulness against Falk.
The inconvenience, the damage, the expense! Gott-
ferdam! Devil take the fellow. Behind the bar
Falk |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: wife, or of his mother, or, of course, the fair relatives of his
friends, Terry's idea seemed to be that pretty women were just
so much game and homely ones not worth considering.
It was really unpleasant sometimes to see the notions he had.
But I got out of patience with Jeff, too. He had such rose-
colored halos on his womenfolks. I held a middle ground, highly
scientific, of course, and used to argue learnedly about the
physiological limitations of the sex.
We were not in the least "advanced" on the woman question,
any of us, then.
So we joked and disputed and speculated, and after an
Herland |
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 Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: borrowed some of her. "So he is a male courtesan," she said to
herself. The handsome man soon required money again, and she lent
it to him again. Then at last he left suddenly and nobody knew
where he had gone to; only this much, that he had left Vevey as
the companion of an old but wealthy Wallachian lady. So this time
clever Wanda was duped.
A year afterward she met the Brazilian unexpectedly at Lucca,
with an insipid-looking, light-haired, thin Englishwoman on his
arm. Wanda stood still and looked at him steadily, but he glanced
at her quite indifferently; he did not choose to know her again.
The next morning, however, his valet brought her a letter from
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