| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Finished by H. Rider Haggard: them they pretended not to understand. They took me a long
journey, travelling for the most part in the dark and sleeping in
the day. This evening when the sun set they brought me through a
Kaffir town and thrust me into the hut where I am without
speaking to any one. Here, being very tired, I went to sleep,
and that is all."
And quite enough too, thought I to myself. Then I put her
through a cross-examination, but Kaatje was a stupid woman
although a good and faithful servant, and all her terrible
experiences had not sharpened her intelligence. Indeed, when I
pressed her she grew utterly confused, began to cry, thereby
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: of bread and the cheese, shut it again with a bang, and went back
to her spinning.
So Gebhart had to go back again to his Greek and Latin and
algebra and geometry; for, after all, one cannot pour a gallon of
beer into a quart pot, or the wisdom of a Nicholas Flamel into
such an one as Gebhart.
As for the name of this story, why, if some promises are not
bottles full of nothing but wind, there is little need to have a
name for anything.
"Since we are in the way of talking of fools," said the Fisherman
who drew the Genie out of the sea--"since we are in the way of
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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 Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: no leave. Taking the Norwich road I ran for a mile and more till I
had passed the Manor House and the church turn, and drew near to
Ditchingham Park. Then I dropped my pace to a walk, for I did not
wish to come before Lily heated and disordered, but rather looking
my best, to which end I had put on my Sunday garments. Now as I
went down the little hill in the road that runs past the park, I
saw a man on horseback who looked first at the bridle-path, that at
this spot turns off to the right, then back across the common lands
towards the Vineyard Hills and the Waveney, and then along the road
as though he did not know which way to turn. I was quick to notice
things--though at this moment my mind was not at its swiftest,
Montezuma's Daughter |
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 A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: in somebody they think knows the rules. With those who don't know them it
is different. I say this with all the more certainty because of a fairly
recent afternoon spent in an English garden with English friends. The
question of pronunciation came up. Now you will readily see that with
them and their compactness, their great public schools, their two great
Universities, and their great London, the one eternal focus of them all,
both the chance of diversity in social customs and the tolerance of it
must be far less than in our huge unfocused country. With us, Boston, New
York, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, is each a centre. Here you
can pronounce the word calm, for example, in one way or another, and it
merely indicates where you come from. Departure in England from certain
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