| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: like Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. It is then
that we find the idea of social progress first clearly expressed,
that we discover some glimmerings of a conscious philanthropy,
and that we detect the earliest symptoms of that unhealthy
tendency to subordinate too entirely the physical to the moral
life, which reached its culmination in the Middle Ages. In the
palmy days of the Athenians it was different. When we hint that
they were not consciously philanthropists, we do not mean that
they were not humane; when we accredit them with no idea of
progress, we do not forget how much they did to render both the
idea and the reality possible; when we say that they had not a
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: and the air was full of the sound of it. They stood in an empty
space in the midst of great tree-trunks, and out there a little green
light moving slightly up and down showed them where the steamer lay
in which they were to embark.
When they all stood upon its deck they found that it was a very
small boat which throbbed gently beneath them for a few minutes,
and then shoved smoothly through the water. They seemed to be
driving into the heart of the night, for the trees closed in
front of them, and they could hear all round them the rustling
of leaves. The great darkness had the usual effect of taking away
all desire for communication by making their words sound thin
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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 The Reef by Edith Wharton: face with the mere graceless fact of his inferiority. He
lifted his head to ask at random: "You've been here, then,
ever since?"
"Since June; yes. It turned out that the Farlows were
hunting for me--all the while--for this."
She stood facing him, her back to the window, evidently
impatient to be gone, yet with something still to say, or
that she expected to hear him say. The sense of her
expectancy benumbed him. What in heaven's name could he say
to her that was not an offense or a mockery?
"Your idea of the theatre--you gave that up at once, then?"
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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 Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: parsley, and waggled her hair in the breeze, and beat time, idly,
with the heel of her little boot, when----
"Holy Cats!" exclaimed a man's voice. "What is this, anyway?
A Coney Island concession gone wrong?"
Mary Louise's eyes unclosed in a flash, and Mary Louise gazed
upon an irate-looking, youngish man, who wore shabby slippers, and
no collar with a full dress air.
"I presume that you are the janitor's beautiful daughter,"
growled the collarless man.
"Well, not precisely," answered Mary Louise, sweetly. "Are
you the scrub-lady's stalwart son?"
Buttered Side Down |
