| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: estrade, and signifying, by a movement of the hand, that she
wished me to relinquish, for an instant, the castor I had
clutched.
"Mademoiselle, I am at your service."
"Monsieur, it is of course an excellent plan to encourage effort
in young people by making conspicuous the progress of any
particularly industrious pupil; but do you not think that in the
present instance, Mdlle. Henri can hardly be considered as a
concurrent with the other pupils? She is older than most of them,
and has had advantages of an exclusive nature for acquiring a
knowledge of English; on the other hand, her sphere of life is
The Professor |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: comparatively out of danger. He and Laches were retreating, for the troops
were in flight, and I met them and told them not to be discouraged, and
promised to remain with them; and there you might see him, Aristophanes, as
you describe (Aristoph. Clouds), just as he is in the streets of Athens,
stalking like a pelican, and rolling his eyes, calmly contemplating enemies
as well as friends, and making very intelligible to anybody, even from a
distance, that whoever attacked him would be likely to meet with a stout
resistance; and in this way he and his companion escaped--for this is the
sort of man who is never touched in war; those only are pursued who are
running away headlong. I particularly observed how superior he was to
Laches in presence of mind. Many are the marvels which I might narrate in
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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 Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs: lent than the men."
For several minutes the two sat in silence, and then the
younger woman turned to the older.
"Is there no way to escape?" she asked.
The old woman pointed again to the barred windows and
then to the door, saying: "And there is the armed eunuch.
And if you should pass him, how could you reach the street?
And if you reached the street, how could you pass through the
city to the outer wall? And even if, by some miracle, you
should gain the outer wall, and, by another miracle, you should
be permitted to pass through the gate, could you ever hope
Tarzan the Untamed |
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: I can see clearly and speak calmly about this now, writing
after a lapse of years, years full of growth and education, but at
the time it was rather hard sledding for all of us--especially for
Terry. Poor Terry! You see, in any other imaginable marriage
among the peoples of the earth, whether the woman were black,
red, yellow, brown, or white; whether she were ignorant or educated,
submissive or rebellious, she would have behind her the marriage
tradition of our general history. This tradition relates the woman
to the man. He goes on with his business, and she adapts herself to
him and to it. Even in citizenship, by some strange hocus-pocus,
that fact of birth and geography was waved aside, and the woman
Herland |
