| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: lips. He turned his head and smiled back at her, waving his hands.
him. "He's all right! He didn't mean anything! Let it go!
He's a good fellah!"
"Din' he insul' me?" asked the man earnestly.
"No," said they. "Of course he didn't! He's all right!"
"Sure he didn' insul' me?" demanded the man, with deep anxiety
in his voice.
"No, no! We know him! He's a good fellah. He didn't mean anything."
"Well, zen," said the man, resolutely, "I'm go' 'pol'gize!"
When the waiter came, the man struggled to the middle of the floor.
"Girlsh shed you insul' me! I shay damn lie! I 'pol'gize!"
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: wonder, have our school histories done this? I think their various au-
thors may consciously or unconsciously have felt that our case against
England was not in truth very strong, that in fact she had been very easy
with us, far easier than any other country was being with its colonies at
that time. The King of France taxed his colonies, the King of Spain
filled his purse, unhampered, from the pockets of Mexico and Peru and
Cuba and Porto Rico--from whatever pocket into which he could put his
hand, and the Dutch were doing the same without the slightest question of
their right to do it. Our quarrel with the mother country and our
breaking away from her in spite of the extremely light rein she was
driving us with, rested in reality upon very slender justification. If
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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 Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: "I think I will go, too," said the younger son, "if I can have your
leave. For my heart goes out to the maid."
"You will ride home with me," said his father.
So they rode home, and when they came to the dun, the King had his
son into his treasury. "Here," said he, "is the touchstone which
shows truth; for there is no truth but plain truth; and if you will
look in this, you will see yourself as you are."
And the younger son looked in it, and saw his face as it were the
face of a beardless youth, and he was well enough pleased; for the
thing was a piece of a mirror.
"Here is no such great thing to make a work about," said he; "but
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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 Phaedo by Plato: although great, are not irremediable--who in a moment of anger, for
example, have done violence to a father or a mother, and have repented for
the remainder of their lives, or, who have taken the life of another under
the like extenuating circumstances--these are plunged into Tartarus, the
pains of which they are compelled to undergo for a year, but at the end of
the year the wave casts them forth--mere homicides by way of Cocytus,
parricides and matricides by Pyriphlegethon--and they are borne to the
Acherusian lake, and there they lift up their voices and call upon the
victims whom they have slain or wronged, to have pity on them, and to be
kind to them, and let them come out into the lake. And if they prevail,
then they come forth and cease from their troubles; but if not, they are
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