| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: would work for her children without the stimulus of competition?"
No, he admitted that he did not mean that. Mothers, he
supposed, would of course work for their children in the home;
but the world's work was different--that had to be done by men,
and required the competitive element.
All our teachers were eagerly interested.
"We want so much to know--you have the whole world to tell us of,
and we have only our little land! And there are two of you--the two sexes--
to love and help one another. It must be a rich and wonderful world.
Tell us--what is the work of the world, that men do--which we have not here?"
"Oh, everything," Terry said grandly. "The men do everything, with us."
Herland |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: woman sincerely, as you love me, respects the sanctity of her
trust in him too deeply to dishonor himself.
"'I blame myself now for what I have written; a word might have
sufficed, and I have preached to you! Scold me; I wish to be
scolded,--but not much, only a little. Dear, between us two the
power is yours--you alone should perceive your own faults.'"
"Well, uncle?" said Octave, whose eyes were full of tears.
"There's more in the letter; finish it."
"Oh, the rest is only to be read by a lover," answered Octave,
smiling.
"Yes, right, my boy," said the old man, gently. "I have had many
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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 Cratylus by Plato: there any proof that words were ever used without any relation to each
other. Whatever may be the meaning of a sentence or a word when applied to
primitive language, it is probable that the sentence is more akin to the
original form than the word, and that the later stage of language is the
result rather of analysis than of synthesis, or possibly is a combination
of the two. Nor, again, are we sure that the original process of learning
to speak was the same in different places or among different races of men.
It may have been slower with some, quicker with others. Some tribes may
have used shorter, others longer words or cries: they may have been more
or less inclined to agglutinate or to decompose them: they may have
modified them by the use of prefixes, suffixes, infixes; by the lengthening
|
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 Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: sprang up, and with singularly awkward gestures struck the lugs.
Montgomery steered us round and into a narrow little dock excavated
in the beach. Then the man on the beach hastened towards us.
This dock, as I call it, was really a mere ditch just long
enough at this phase of the tide to take the longboat.
I heard the bows ground in the sand, staved the dingey off the rudder
of the big boat with my piggin, and freeing the painter, landed.
The three muffled men, with the clumsiest movements, scrambled out
upon the sand, and forthwith set to landing the cargo, assisted by
the man on the beach. I was struck especially by the curious
movements of the legs of the three swathed and bandaged boatmen,--
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
