| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: factories with high-perched water-tanks and tall stacks-factories producing
condensed milk, paper boxes, lighting-fixtures, motor cars. Then the business
center, the thickening darting traffic, the crammed trolleys unloading, and
high doorways of marble and polished granite.
It was big--and Babbitt respected bigness in anything; in mountains, jewels,
muscles, wealth, or words. He was, for a spring-enchanted moment, the lyric
and almost unselfish lover of Zenith. He thought of the outlying factory
suburbs; of the Chaloosa River with its strangely eroded banks; of the
orchard-dappled Tonawanda Hills to the North, and all the fat dairy land and
big barns and comfortable herds. As he dropped his passenger he cried, "Gosh,
I feel pretty good this morning!" III
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: yearly child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure
at a Lord Mayor's feast, or any other publick entertainment. But
this, and many others, I omit, being studious of brevity.
Supposing that one thousand families in this city, would be
constant customers for infants flesh, besides others who might
have it at merry meetings, particularly at weddings and
christenings, I compute that Dublin would take off annually about
twenty thousand carcasses; and the rest of the kingdom (where
probably they will be sold somewhat cheaper) the remaining eighty
thousand.
I can think of no one objection, that will possibly be raised
A Modest Proposal |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: let me take this opportunity of answering a question that has often been asked
me, how to pronounce "slithy toves." The "i" in "slithy" is long, as in
"writhe"; and "toves" is pronounced so as to rhyme with "groves." Again, the
first "o" in "borogoves" is pronounced like the "o" in "borrow." I have heard
people try to give it the sound of the "o" in "worry. Such is Human
Perversity.
This also seems a fitting occasion to notice the other hard works in that
poem. Humpty-Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a
portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all.
For instance, take the two words "fuming" and "furious." Make up your
mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say
The Hunting of the Snark |
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 Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: daown offen the aidges onto the graoun' whar the side timbers
is blowed away. An' they's awful kinder marks in the yard, tew
- great raound marks bigger raound than a hogshead, an' all sticky
with stuff like is on the browed-up haouse. Cha'ncey he says they
leads off into the medders, whar a great swath wider'n a barn
is matted daown, an' all the stun walls tumbled every whichway
wherever it goes.
'An' he says, says he, Mis' Corey, as haow
he sot to look fer Seth's caows, frightened ez he was an' faound
'em in the upper pasture nigh the Devil's Hop Yard in an awful
shape. Haff on 'em's clean gone, an' nigh haff o' them that's
The Dunwich Horror |
