| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An International Episode by Henry James: as if I didn't remember making six sherry cobblers for him one day
in about twenty minutes. I hope you left him well, two years having
elapsed since then."
"Oh, yes, he's all right," said Lord Lambeth.
"I am always very glad to see your countrymen," Mr. Westgate pursued.
"I thought it would be time some of you should be coming along.
A friend of mine was saying to me only a day or two ago, 'It's time
for the watermelons and the Englishmen."
"The Englishmen and the watermelons just now are about the same thing,"
Percy Beaumont observed, wiping his dripping forehead.
"Ah, well, we'll put you on ice, as we do the melons.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell: hangmen, that we can diminish their numbers. By our prisons,
we merely multiply them and render them worse. By our detectives,
our `price of blood,' our executions, and our jails, we
spread in society such a terrible flow of basest passions and
habits, that he who should realize the effects of these institutions
to their full extent, would be frightened by what society is
doing under the pretext of maintaining morality. We must
search for other remedies, and the remedies have been indicated
long since.'' Kropotkin, ``Anarchist Communism,'' pp. 31-32.
[52] ``Anarchist Communism,'' p. 27.
The conclusion, which appears to be forced upon
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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 Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: . Now, suppose you had a little colt, and you were own mother to
that little colt. . . . And all at once that same little colt
went and died. . . . You'd be sorry, wouldn't you? . . ."
The little mare munches, listens, and breathes on her master's
hands. Iona is carried away and tells her all about it.
CHAMPAGNE
A WAYFARER'S STORY
IN the year in which my story begins I had a job at a little
station on one of our southwestern railways. Whether I had a gay
or a dull life at the station you can judge from the fact that
for fifteen miles round there was not one human habitation,
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
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 Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: hat and be ready to come along with this gentleman and me, for
you will probably be wanted as a witness."
"What, sir," cried I, as soon as the clerk was gone, "are you to
venture it?"
"Why, so it would appear," says he, filling his glass. "But let
us speak no more of business. The very sight of Torrance brings
in my head a little droll matter of some years ago, when I had
made a tryst with the poor oaf at the cross of Edinburgh. Each
had gone his proper errand; and when it came four o'clock,
Torrance had been taking a glass and did not know his master, and
I, who had forgot my spectacles, was so blind without them, that
Kidnapped |
