| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: "Well," Amory considered, "I'm not sure that the war itself had
any great effect on either you or mebut it certainly ruined the
old backgrounds, sort of killed individualism out of our
generation."
Tom looked up in surprise.
"Yes it did," insisted Amory. "I'm not sure it didn't kill it out
of the whole world. Oh, Lord, what a pleasure it used to be to
dream I might be a really great dictator or writer or religious
or political leaderand now even a Leonardo da Vinci or Lorenzo de
Medici couldn't be a real old-fashioned bolt in the world. Life
is too huge and complex. The world is so overgrown that it can't
This Side of Paradise |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Riverman by Stewart Edward White: sold to the log-owners themselves; the rest he scattered here and
there and everywhere in small lots, as he was able. Some five
hundred and thousand dollar blocks even went to Chicago. His own
little fortune of twenty thousand he paid in for the shares that
represented his half of the majority retained by himself and Orde.
The latter gave a note at ten per cent for his proportion of the
stock. Newmark then borrowed fifteen thousand more, giving as
security a mortgage on the company's newly acquired property--the
tugs, booms, buildings, and real estate. Thus was the financing
determined. It left the company with obligations of fifteen hundred
dollars a year in interest, expenses which would run heavily into
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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 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: connexion between, the apple and the tree: the organic connexion. And
if you've got nothing in your life BUT the mental life, then you
yourself are a plucked apple...you've fallen off the tree. And then it
is a logical necessity to be spiteful, just as it's a natural necessity
for a plucked apple to go bad.'
Clifford made big eyes: it was all stuff to him. Connie secretly
laughed to herself.
'Well then we're all plucked apples,' said Hammond, rather acidly and
petulantly.
'So let's make cider of ourselves,' said Charlie.
'But what do you think of Bolshevism?' put in the brown Berry, as if
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
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 The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: own level.
"In truth, if boys and girls are born equal, the little girls
find themselves in a better situation. In the first place, the
young girl is not subjected to the perverting conditions to which
we are subjected. She has neither cigarettes, nor wine, nor
cards, nor comrades, nor public houses, nor public functions.
And then the chief thing is that she is physically pure, and that
is why, in marrying, she is superior to her husband. She is
superior to man as a young girl, and when she becomes a wife in
our society, where there is no need to work in order to live, she
becomes superior, also, by the gravity of the acts of generation,
The Kreutzer Sonata |
