| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: without any visible sign of distress or alarm, but he remained
awake and in his office all that Sunday night, listening to the
excited tales of congressmen and senators who, with undue
curiosity, had followed the army and witnessed some of the sights
and sounds of battle; and by dawn on Monday he had practically
made up his mind as to the probable result and what he must do in
consequence.
The loss of the battle of Bull Run was a bitter disappointment to
him. He saw that the North was not to have the easy victory it
anticipated; and to him personally it brought a great and added
care that never left him during the war. Up to that time the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: apt to burst out into loud laughter at the smallest joke.
So again when young children are just beginning to cry,
an unexpected event will sometimes suddenly turn their crying
into laughter, which apparently serves equally well to expend
their superfluous nervous energy.
[4] Mr. Bain (`The Emotions and the Will,' 1865, p. 247) has a long
and interesting discussion on the Ludicrous. The quotation above
given about the laughter of the gods is taken from this work.
See, also, Mandeville, `The Fable of the Bees,' vol. ii. p. 168.
[5] `The Physiology of Laughter,' Essays, Second Series, 1863, p. 114.
The imagination is sometimes said to be tickled by a ludicrous idea;
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
