| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: Or furious rivers their restraining banks."
CORYDON
"The junipers and prickly chestnuts stand,
And 'neath each tree lie strewn their several fruits,
Now the whole world is smiling, but if fair
Alexis from these hill-slopes should away,
Even the rivers you would ; see run dry."
THYRSIS
"The field is parched, the grass-blades thirst to death
In the faint air; Liber hath grudged the hills
His vine's o'er-shadowing: should my Phyllis come,
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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 Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: revealed Giotto, - as the one word "moi" betrayed the Stratford
atte-Bowe-taught Anglais, - so all a man's antecedents and
possibilities are summed up in a single utterance which gives at
once the gauge of his education and his mental organization.
Possibilities, Sir? - said the divinity-student; can't a man who
says HAOW? arrive at distinction?
Sir, - I replied, - in a republic all things are possible. But the
man WITH A FUTURE has almost of necessity sense enough to see that
any odious trick of speech or manners must be got rid of. Doesn't
Sydney Smith say that a public man in England never gets over a
false quantity uttered in early life? OUR public men are in little
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
