| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: embarrassed Virginian a large grin slowly forced itself. "I guess
yu' know about it," he murmured. And he looked at me with a sort
of reproach. He knew it was I who had told tales out of school.
"I only want to say," said Ogden, conciliatingly, "that I know I
couldn't have handled those men."
The Virginian relented. "Yu' never tried, seh."
The Judge had remained serious; but he showed himself plainly
more and more contented. "Quite right," he said. "You had to part
with your cook. When I put a man in charge, I put him in charge.
I don't make particulars my business. They're to be always his.
Do you understand?"
The Virginian |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: Paris, in order to be fully prepared for the functions of a post which
would surely not be refused to a rich young man. To see himself, by
the time he was thirty, "procureur du roi" in any court, no matter
where, was his sole ambition. Though Frederic Marest was cousin-german
to Georges Marest, the latter not having told his surname in
Pierrotin's coucou, Oscar Husson did not connect the present Marest
with the grandson of Czerni-Georges.
"Messieurs," said Godeschal at breakfast time, addressing all the
clerks, "I announce to you the arrival of a new jurisconsult; and as
he is rich, rishissime, we will make him, I hope, pay a glorious
entrance-fee."
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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 Pericles by William Shakespeare: her. When she should do for clients her fitment, and do me the
kindness of our profession, she has me her quirks, her reasons,
her master reasons, her prayers, her knees; that she would make
a puritan of the devil, if he should cheapen a kiss of her.
BOULT.
'Faith, I must ravish her, or she'll disfurnish us of all our
cavaliers, and make our swearers priests.
PANDAR.
Now, the pox upon her green-sickness for me!
BAWD.
'Faith, there's no way to be rid on't but by the way to the pox.
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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 The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: critics were not at first conscious, because it was not expressed in
terms with which they were familiar.
But first impressions, here as elsewhere, are valuable. One is very
apt to turn to them again from the reasoning of his second thoughts.
Flora and fauna are a conspicuous feature of Far Asiatic art,
because they enter as details of the subject-matter of the artist's
thoughts and day-dreams. These birds and flowers are his sujets de
genre. Where we should select a phase of human life for effective
isolation, they choose instead a bit of nature. A spray of grass or
a twig of cherry-blossoms is motif enough for them. To their
thought its beauty is amply suggestive. For to the Far Oriental all
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