| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: with an external heat greater than our own internal, may not cookery
properly be said to begin? Darwin, the naturalist, says of the
inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, that while his own party, who were
well clothed and sitting close to a fire, were far from too warm,
these naked savages, who were farther off, were observed, to his
great surprise, "to be streaming with perspiration at undergoing
such a roasting." So, we are told, the New Hollander goes naked
with impunity, while the European shivers in his clothes. Is it
impossible to combine the hardiness of these savages with the
intellectualness of the civilized man? According to Liebig, man's
body is a stove, and food the fuel which keeps up the internal
Walden |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: of a man overborne, bored to extinction, ruined by Madame de la
Baudraye.
"Oh, what would I not give to the friend who would deliver me from
Dinah! But no one ever can!" said he. "She loves me enough to throw
herself out of the window if I told her."
The journalist was duly pitied; he would take precautions against
Dinah's jealousy when he accepted an invitation. And then he was
shamelessly unfaithful. Monsieur de Clagny, really in despair at
seeing Dinah in such disgraceful circumstances when she might have
been so rich, and in so wretched a position at the time when her
original ambitions would have been fulfilled, came to warn her, to
The Muse of the Department |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: he, smiling, 'when I am dead what a fine time you will have
clearing out my trash!' He had been dead about six months; but I
was pleased to see some of his trophies still exposed, and looked
upon them with a smile: the tribute (if I have read his cheerful
character aright) which he would have preferred to any useless
tears. Disease continued progressively to disable him; he who had
clambered so stalwartly over the rude rocks of the Marquesas,
bringing peace to warfaring clans, was for some time carried in a
chair between the mission and the church, and at last confined to
bed, impotent with dropsy, and tormented with bed-sores and
sciatica. Here he lay two months without complaint; and on the
|
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 Voice of the City by O. Henry: Carter had never before encountered a situation of
which he had not been perfect master. But now he
stood far more awkward than Bill or Jack or Mickey.
He had no chance of meeting this beautiful girl so-
cially. His mind struggled to recall the nature and
habits of shopgirls as be had read or heard of them.
Somehow be had received the idea that they some-
times did not insist too strictly upon the regular
channels of introduction. His heart beat loudly at
the thought of proposing an unconventional meeting
with this lovely and virginal being. But the tumult
The Voice of the City |
