| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: mankind, a student, and a rhetorician of high degree."
"It must have been written by a syndicate," said Thacker. "But,
honestly, Colonel, you want to go slow. I don't know of any eight-
thousand-word single doses of written matter that are read by anybody
these days, except Supreme Court briefs and reports of murder trials.
You haven't by any accident gotten hold of a copy of one of Daniel
Webster's speeches, have you?"
Colonel Telfair swung a little in his chair and looked steadily from
under his bushy eyebrows at the magazine promoter.
"Mr. Thacker," he said, gravely, "I am willing to segregate the
somewhat crude expression of your sense of humor from the solicitude
Options |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: care.
Then abruptly Mr. Stanley changed his key. "You poor child!" he
said; "don't you see the infinite folly of these proceedings?
Think! Think of the love and affection you abandon! Think of
your aunt, a second mother to you. Think if your own mother was
alive!"
He paused, deeply moved.
"If my own mother was alive," sobbed Ann Veronica, "she would
understand."
The talk became more and more inconclusive and exhausting. Ann
Veronica found herself incompetent, undignified, and detestable,
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: differently, of course--there were few of them, and they could
combine and dominate, and their power would be unbreakable. And
so all over the world two classes were forming, with an unbridged
chasm between them--the capitalist class, with its enormous
fortunes, and the proletariat, bound into slavery by unseen
chains. The latter were a thousand to one in numbers, but they
were ignorant and helpless, and they would remain at the mercy of
their exploiters until they were organized--until they had become
"class-conscious." It was a slow and weary process, but it would
go on--it was like the movement of a glacier, once it was started
it could never be stopped. Every Socialist did his share, and
|
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 Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: walrus herded by themselves.
He landed close to old Sea Vitch--the big, ugly, bloated,
pimpled, fat-necked, long-tusked walrus of the North Pacific, who
has no manners except when he is asleep--as he was then, with
his hind flippers half in and half out of the surf.
"Wake up!" barked Kotick, for the gulls were making a great
noise.
"Hah! Ho! Hmph! What's that?" said Sea Vitch, and he struck
the next walrus a blow with his tusks and waked him up, and the
next struck the next, and so on till they were all awake and
staring in every direction but the right one.
The Jungle Book |
