| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: "You fell out, man."
Billy was incredulous.
"You did. You tore your clothes wide open."
Billy, looking at his trousers, did not see it.
"Rise, and I'll show you," said Bertie.
"Goodness gracious!" said Billy.
Thus discoursing, they reached Harvard Square. Not your Harvard Square,
gentle reader, that place populous with careless youths and careful
maidens and reticent persons with books, but one of sleeping windows and
clear, cool air and few sounds; a Harvard Square of emptiness and
conspicuous sparrows and milk wagons and early street-car conductors in
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: over me suddenly how kind people had been lately, and how much
I'd been getting--the old doctor's waistcoat buttons and Miss
Pat's furs, and now this! I just buried my face in them and
cried.
Doctor Barnes stood by and said nothing. Some men wouldn't have
understood, but he did. After a minute or so he came over and
pulled the sweater out from the bundle.
"I'm glad you like 'em," he said, "but as I bought them at
Hubbard's, in Finleyville, and as the old liar guaranteed they
wouldn't shrink, we'd better not cry on 'em."
Well, I put them on and I was warmer and happier than I had been
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: assertion should excite discredit, I may name some illustrious
examples. Such was Spithridates the Persian, who knew that
Pharnabazus,[1] whilst negotiating to marry the daughter of the great
king, was minded to seize his own daughter unwedded. Resenting such
brutality, Spithridates delivered up himself, his wife, his children,
and his whole power, into the hands of Agesilaus. Cotys[2] also, the
ruler of Paphlagonia, had refused to obey a summons from the king,
although he sent him the warrant of his right hand;[3] then fear came
upon him lest he should be seized, and either be heavily fined or die
the death; yet he too, simply trusting to an armistice, came to the
camp of Agesilaus and made alliance, and of his own accord chose to
|
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 To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: all the little rubs and digs of the evening, and how it bored him
unutterably to sit still while people ate and drank interminably, and
his being so irritable with his wife and so touchy and minding when
they passed his books over as if they didn't exist at all. But now, he
felt, it didn't matter a damn who reached Z (if thought ran like an
alphabet from A to Z). Somebody would reach it--if not he, then
another. This man's strength and sanity, his feeling for straight
forward simple things, these fishermen, the poor old crazed creature in
Mucklebackit's cottage made him feel so vigorous, so relieved of
something that he felt roused and triumphant and could not choke back
his tears. Raising the book a little to hide his face, he let them
To the Lighthouse |
