| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: She read: "My beloved, you are inventing idle terrors for
yourself . . ." The Marquise gazed at the words, and a thick mist
spread before her eyes. A voice in her heart cried, "He lies!"--Then
she glanced down the page with the clairvoyant eagerness of passion,
and read these words at the foot, "/Nothing has been decided as
yet . . ./" Turning to the other side with convulsive quickness, she
saw the mind of the writer distinctly through the intricacies of the
wording; this was no spontaneous outburst of love. She crushed it in
her fingers, twisted it, tore it with her teeth, flung it in the fire,
and cried aloud, "Ah! base that he is! I was his, and he had ceased to
love me!"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: Petruchio." He paced complacently up the room and back, and
quoted glibly:
"And thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humor.
He that knows better how to tame a shrew,
Now let him, speak; 'tis charity to show."
"Would you take me against my will?"
"Y'u have said it. What's your will to me? What I want I take.
And I sure want my beautiful shrew." His half-shuttered eyes
gloated on her as he rattled off a couple more lines from the
play he had mentioned.
"Kate, like the hazel-twig,
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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 Before Adam by Jack London: the entrance and there I stopped. There was no room
for me. Lop-Ear and his mate were in possession, and
she was none other than my sister, the daughter of my
step-father, the Chatterer.
I tried to force my way in. There was space only for
two, and that space was already occupied. Also, they
had me at a disadvantage, and, what of the scratching
and hair-pulling I received, I was glad to retreat. I
slept that night, and for many nights, in the
connecting passage of the double-cave. From my
experience it seemed reasonably safe. As the two Folk
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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 A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: Many other advantages might be enumerated. For instance, the
addition of some thousand carcasses in our exportation of
barrel'd beef: the propagation of swine's flesh, and improvement
in the art of making good bacon, so much wanted among us by the
great destruction of pigs, too frequent at our tables; which are
no way comparable in taste or magnificence to a well grown, fat
yearly child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure
at a Lord Mayor's feast, or any other publick entertainment. But
this, and many others, I omit, being studious of brevity.
Supposing that one thousand families in this city, would be
constant customers for infants flesh, besides others who might
A Modest Proposal |
