| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: deep in the mind of Ichabod. He repaid them in kind with large
extracts from his invaluable author, Cotton Mather, and added
many marvellous events that had taken place in his native State
of Connecticut, and fearful sights which he had seen in his
nightly walks about Sleepy Hollow.
The revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers gathered
together their families in their wagons, and were heard for some
time rattling along the hollow roads, and over the distant hills.
Some of the damsels mounted on pillions behind their favorite
swains, and their light-hearted laughter, mingling with the
clatter of hoofs, echoed along the silent woodlands, sounding
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: said, 'you cannot get the children. If they do not like the taste of the
milk as it comes out of the bottle through the Feeder, they will simply
not take it.'"
"'Well,' I answered, 'old Mrs. Beverly is holding on to hers.'"
"When I said this, Ethel sat with her mouth tight. Then she opened it and
said: 'I hate that woman.'"
"'Hate her? Why, you have never so much as laid eyes on her.'"
"'That is not at all necessary. I consider it indecent for a grey haired
woman with grandchildren to be speculating in the stock market every week
like a regular bull or bear.'"
"Every point in this outburst of Ethel's seemed to me so unwarrantable
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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 The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: about it was that General Limon took a fancy to the
horses too, and he stole them from me!"
"Of course--there's no use denying it, I've stolen too,"
Blondie confesses. "But ask any one of my partners
how much profit I've got. I'm a big spender and my
Purse is my friends' to have a good time on! I have
a better time if I drink myself senseless than I would
have sending money back home to the old woman!"
The subject of "I stole," though apparently inexhausti-
ble, ceases to hold the men's attention. Decks of cards
gradually appear on the seats, drawing generals and of-
The Underdogs |
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 Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: toil! For woman is beauty, peace, repose! Your function is to give life,
not to support it by labour. The Mother, the Mother! How wonderful it
sounds! Toil no more! Rest is for you; labour and drudgery for us!"
Would he not rather assure her that, unless she laboured more assiduously
and sternly, she would lose his custom and so be unable to pay her month's
rent; and perhaps so, with children and an invalid or drunken husband whom
she supports, be turned out into the streets? For, it is remarkable, that,
with theorists of this class, it is not toil, or the amount of toil,
crushing alike to brain and body, which the female undertakes that is
objected to; it is the form and the amount of the reward. It is not the
hand-labouring woman, even in his own society, worn out and prematurely
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