| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James: sitting in corners with mysterious Italians; dancing all the evening
with the same partners; receiving visits at eleven o'clock at night.
Her mother goes away when visitors come."
"But her brother," said Winterbourne, laughing, "sits up till midnight."
"He must be edified by what he sees. I'm told that at their hotel
everyone is talking about her, and that a smile goes round among
all the servants when a gentleman comes and asks for Miss Miller."
"The servants be hanged!" said Winterbourne angrily.
"The poor girl's only fault," he presently added, "is that she
is very uncultivated."
"She is naturally indelicate," Mrs. Walker declared.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: know. It's true, he doesn't look like much there, but that's
because he's not in uniform. It makes such a difference."
"Is the lady anything like her brother?" asked the detective
indifferently, bending to examine the wiring.
"Oh, dear, no, not a bit; they're as different as day and night.
He's only her half-brother anyway. She was the daughter of the
Colonel's second wife. Our Madam is the sweetest, gentlest lady
you can imagine, an angel of goodness. But the Lieutenant here
has always been a care to his family, they say. I guess he's
quieted down a bit now, for his father - he's Colonel Leining,
retired - made him get exchanged from the city to a small garrison
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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 Phaedrus by Plato: should like to hear him; but if not, we are satisfied with our own view,
that unless a man estimates the various characters of his hearers and is
able to divide all things into classes and to comprehend them under single
ideas, he will never be a skilful rhetorician even within the limits of
human power. And this skill he will not attain without a great deal of
trouble, which a good man ought to undergo, not for the sake of speaking
and acting before men, but in order that he may be able to say what is
acceptable to God and always to act acceptably to Him as far as in him
lies; for there is a saying of wiser men than ourselves, that a man of
sense should not try to please his fellow-servants (at least this should
not be his first object) but his good and noble masters; and therefore if
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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 Herland by Charlotte Gilman: undertaking such a work as the deliberate replanting of an entire
forest area with different kinds of trees. Yet this seemed to them
the simplest common sense, like a man's plowing up an inferior
lawn and reseeding it. Now every tree bore fruit--edible fruit,
that is. In the case of one tree, in which they took especial pride,
it had originally no fruit at all--that is, none humanly edible--
yet was so beautiful that they wished to keep it. For nine hundred
years they had experimented, and now showed us this particularly
lovely graceful tree, with a profuse crop of nutritious seeds.
They had early decided that trees were the best food plants,
requiring far less labor in tilling the soil, and bearing a larger
Herland |
