| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: have heard our own description put in practice.
'All night | the dread | less an | gel un | pursued,' (2)
goes the schoolboy; but though we close our ears, we cling to
our definition, in spite of its proved and naked
insufficiency. Mr. Jenkin was not so easily pleased, and
readily discovered that the heroic line consists of four
groups, or, if you prefer the phrase, contains four pauses:
'All night | the dreadless | angel | unpursued.'
Four groups, each practically uttered as one word: the
first, in this case, an iamb; the second, an amphibrachys;
the third, a trochee; and the fourth, an amphimacer; and yet
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Vision Splendid by William MacLeod Raine: belonged, and forced the convention to declare for a reform
platform and to nominate a clean ticket composed of men of
character.
Jeff agreed. "I think we're going to win. The people are with us.
The _World_ is booming." It's the advertising troubles me. Frome
and Merrill have got at the big stores and they won't come in with
any space worth mentioning."
"Damn the big advertisers," exploded Chunn. "I've got two million
cold and I'm going to see this thing out, son. That's what I told
Frome last week when he had the nerve to have me nominated to the
Verden Club. Wanted to muzzle me. Be a good fellow and quit
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: head, shoulder to shoulder bare, as if incorporate?[45]
[43] Cf. Plat. "Crit." 46 D; "Hell." IV. iv. 17; Arist. "Birds," 1245.
[44] "Grammarian's." Plat. "Protag." 312 B; 326 D; Dem. 315. 8.
[45] Like Hermia and Helena, "Mids. N. D." iii. 2. 208.
As yes, alack the day! (he answered); and that is why, no doubt, my
shoulder ached for more than five days afterwards, as if I had been
bitten by some fell beast, and methought I felt a sort of scraping at
the heart.[46] Now therefore, in the presence of these witnesses, I
warn you, Critobulus, never again to touch me till you wear as thick a
crop of hair[47] upon your chin as on your head.
[46] Reading {knisma}, "scratching." Plat. "Hipp. maj." 304 A. Al.
The Symposium |
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 King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: Turner to be the greatest landscape painter the world had seen,
and he immediately wrote a notable article in his defense. Slowly
this article grew into a pamphlet, and the pamphlet into a book,
the first volume of "Modern Painters." The young man awoke to
find himself famous. In the next few years four more volumes were
added to "Modern Painters," and the other notable series upon
art, "The Stones of Venice" and "The Seven Lamps of
Architecture," were sent forth.
Then, in 1860, when Ruskin was about forty years old, there
came a great change. His heaven-born genius for making the
appreciation of beauty a common possession was deflected from its
|
