| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde: that she had lost by a moment's folly, to lead again a decent life.
I believed what she told me - I was mistaken in her. She is bad -
as bad as a woman can be.
LADY WINDERMERE. Arthur, Arthur, don't talk so bitterly about any
woman. I don't think now that people can be divided into the good
and the bad as though they were two separate races or creations.
What are called good women may have terrible things in them, mad
moods of recklessness, assertion, jealousy, sin. Bad women, as
they are termed, may have in them sorrow, repentance, pity,
sacrifice. And I don't think Mrs. Erlynne a bad woman - I know
she's not.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: "Then I paid Uncle Ned his fifty cents, and walked down to the
newspaper office. I wanted to hear it in cold syllables. I got the
advertising man to his window.
"'To decide a bet,' says I, 'wasn't the man who had this ad. put in
last night short and fat, with long black whiskers and a club-foot?'
"'He was not,' says the man. 'He would measure about six feet by four
and a half inches, with corn-silk hair, and dressed like the pansies
of the conservatory.'
"At dinner time I went back to Mrs. Peevy's.
"'Shall I keep some soup hot for Mr. Tatum till he comes back?' she
asks.
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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 Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: and more glorious aim."
"Misconceive me not, sir knight," said the friar. "We all love
and honour King Richard, and here is a deep draught to his health:
but I would show you, that we foresters are miscalled by opprobrious names,
and that our virtues, though they follow at humble distance, are yet
truly akin to those of Coeur-de-Lion. I say not that Richard is a thief,
but I say that Robin is a hero: and for honour, did ever yet man,
miscalled thief, win greater honour than Robin? Do not all men grace
him with some honourable epithet? The most gentle thief, the most
courteous thief, the most bountiful thief, yea, and the most honest thief?
Richard is courteous, bountiful, honest, and valiant: but so also
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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 This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: shopkeepers, and, topping all, climbing with clear blue
aspiration, the great dreaming spires of Holder and Cleveland
towers.
From the first he loved Princetonits lazy beauty, its
half-grasped significance, the wild moonlight revel of the
rushes, the handsome, prosperous big-game crowds, and under it
all the air of struggle that pervaded his class. From the day
when, wild-eyed and exhausted, the jerseyed freshmen sat in the
gymnasium and elected some one from Hill School class president,
a Lawrenceville celebrity vice-president, a hockey star from St.
Paul's secretary, up until the end of sophomore year it never
This Side of Paradise |
