| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: Brutality and tyranny appear on the face of it. It leaves us at no loss:
And every line convinces, even in the moment of reading, that He,
who hunts the woods for prey, the naked and untutored Indian,
is less a Savage than the King of Britain.
Sir John Dalrymple, the putative father of a whining jesuitical piece,
fallaciously called, "THE ADDRESS OF THE PEOPLE OF _ENGLAND_
TO THE INHABITANTS OF _AMERICA_," hath, perhaps, from a vain supposition,
that the people here were to be frightened at the pomp and description
of a king, given, (though very unwisely on his part) the real character
of the present one: "But" says this writer, "if you are inclined to pay
compliments to an administration, which we do not complain of,"
Common Sense |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde: GUIDO
[clasping her in his arms]
O love, love, love! Nay, sweet, lift up your head,
Let me unlock those little scarlet doors
That shut in music, let me dive for coral
In your red lips, and I'll bear back a prize
Richer than all the gold the Gryphon guards
In rude Armenia.
DUCHESS
You are my lord,
And what I have is yours, and what I have not
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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 Faith of Men by Jack London: In five years he heard but one kind word, received but one soft
stroke of a hand, and then he did not know what manner of things
they were. He leaped like the untamed thing he was, and his jaws
were together in a flash. It was the missionary at Sunrise, a
newcomer in the country, who spoke the kind word and gave the soft
stroke of the hand. And for six months after, he wrote no letters
home to the States, and the surgeon at McQuestion travelled two
hundred miles on the ice to save him from blood-poisoning.
Men and dogs looked askance at Batard when he drifted into their
camps and posts. The men greeted him with feet threateningly
lifted for the kick, the dogs with bristling manes and bared fangs.
|
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 The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry: are wisest. They are the magi.
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of THE GIFT OF THE MAGI.
The Gift of the Magi |
