| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: marriage much in the same way as they prepare themselves for
death: each seems inevitable; each is a great Perhaps, and a
leap into the dark, for which, when a man is in the blue
devils, he has specially to harden his heart. That splendid
scoundrel, Maxime de Trailles, took the news of marriages much
as an old man hears the deaths of his contemporaries. "C'est
desesperant," he cried, throwing himself down in the arm-chair
at Madame Schontz's; "c'est desesperant, nous nous marions
tous!" Every marriage was like another gray hair on his head;
and the jolly church bells seemed to taunt him with his fifty
years and fair round belly.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey: these--er--big stock-buyers?"
Colonel Webb seemed a little startled at the abrupt query. He
bent his penetrating gaze upon Duane and thoughtfully stroked
his pointed beard.
"Names, of course, I'll not mention. Opinions are one thing,
direct accusation another. This is not a healthy country for
the informer."
When it came to the outlaws themselves Colonel Webb was
disposed to talk freely. Duane could not judge whether the
Colonel had a hobby of that subject or the outlaws were so
striking in personality and deed that any man would know all
The Lone Star Ranger |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Before Adam by Jack London: lurked for me in the forest glades; leaped up,
striking, under my feet; squirmed off through the dry
grass or across naked patches of rock; or pursued me
into the tree-tops, encircling the trunks with their
great shining bodies, driving me higher and higher or
farther and farther out on swaying and crackling
branches, the ground a dizzy distance beneath me.
Snakes!--with their forked tongues, their beady eyes
and glittering scales, their hissing and their
rattling--did I not already know them far too well on
that day of my first circus when I saw 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 Protagoras by Plato: that which he says himself, but for saying something different from
himself. Pittacus does not say as Simonides says, that hardly can a man
become good, but hardly can a man be good: and our friend Prodicus would
maintain that being, Protagoras, is not the same as becoming; and if they
are not the same, then Simonides is not inconsistent with himself. I dare
say that Prodicus and many others would say, as Hesiod says,
'On the one hand, hardly can a man become good,
For the gods have made virtue the reward of toil,
But on the other hand, when you have climbed the height,
Then, to retain virtue, however difficult the acquisition, is easy (Works
and Days).'
|
