| 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: Building Barber Shop, but this was also Babbitt's one embarrassment. Himself,
he patronized the glittering Pompeian Barber Shop in the Hotel Thornleigh, and
every time he passed the Reeves shop--ten times a day, a hundred times--he
felt untrue to his own village.
Now, as one of the squirearchy, greeted with honorable salutations by the
villagers, he marched into his office, and peace and dignity were upon him,
and the morning's dissonances all unheard.
They were heard again, immediately.
Stanley Graff, the outside salesman, was talking on the telephone with tragic
lack of that firm manner which disciplines clients: "Say, uh, I think I got
just the house that would suit you--the Percival House, in Linton.... Oh,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth: shouting and fighting up till three and four o'clock in the morning."
I could fill volumes with stories of the war against vermin, which is
part of this campaign in the slums, but the subject is too revolting to
those who are often indifferent to the agonies their fellow creatures
suffer, so long as their sensitive ears are not shocked by the mention
of so painful a subject. Here, for instance, is a sample of the kind
of region in which the Slum Sisters spend themselves:
"In an apparently respectable street near Oxford street, the Officers
where visiting one day when they saw a very dark staircase leading into
a cellar, and thinking it possible that someone might be there they
attempted to go down, and yet the staircase was so dark they thought it
In Darkest England and The Way Out |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: sadness for her will be a happiness for the child."
"Truly, good woman," replied the servant, "it is rightly said that
the death of every fruit is the seed of new life. Every ending is
also a beginning."
As the years passed, the baby grew up into a fine, strong young man.
The king, who remained crusty and harsh toward everyone else,
changed completely when his son (as he supposed) entered the room.
The king became actually friendly and laughed some and often engaged
in animated conversation with the young prince. The king was often
heard to say that he would never let the prince part from him even
for a day but that the prince should be his always. They often rode
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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 Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: my part, I have a small idea of the degree of accuracy
possible to man, and I feel sure these studies teem with
error. One and all were written with genuine interest in the
subject; many, however, have been conceived and finished with
imperfect knowledge; and all have lain, from beginning to
end, under the disadvantages inherent in this style of
writing.
Of these disadvantages a word must here be said. The writer
of short studies, having to condense in a few pages the
events of a whole lifetime, and the effect on his own mind of
many various volumes, is bound, above all things, to make
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