| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: attributed to Shakespeare,' he added.
Morris's mind was labouring like a mill. 'Does he suspect? or is
this chance and stuff? Should I soap, or should I bully? Soap,'
he concluded. 'It gains time.' 'Well,' said he aloud, and with
rather a painful affectation of heartiness, 'it's long since we
have had an evening together, Michael; and though my habits (as
you know) are very temperate, I may as well make an exception.
Excuse me one moment till I fetch a bottle of whisky from the
cellar.'
'No whisky for me,' said Michael; 'a little of the old still
champagne or nothing.'
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: Pressing, and Packing Company."
"'What a number of things it does!' exclaimed Ethel, when I showed her
the company's check."
"'Yes,' I replied, and quoted Browning to her: ''Twenty-nine Distinct
damnations. One sure if the other fails.' Beverly's mother has a lot of
it.'"
"But Ethel did not smile. 'Richard,' she said, 'I do wish you had more
investments with ordinary simple names, like New York and New Haven, or
Chicago and Northwestern.' And when I told her that I thought this was
really unreasonable, she was firm. 'Yes,' she replied, 'I don't like the
names--not most of them, at least. Dutchess and Columbia Traction sounds
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: the ape and inherited his passions, which he can only refine but dare
not attempt to castrate unless he would destroy the fountains of
energy that maintain civilization and make life worth living and the
world worth beautifying....We do not have a problem that is to be
solved by making repressive laws and executing them. Nothing will be
more disastrous. Society must make life worth the living and the
refining for the individual by conditioning him to love and to seek
the love-object in a manner that reflects a constructive effect upon
his fellow-men and by giving him suitable opportunities. The virility
of the automatic apparatus is destroyed by excessive gormandizing or
hunger, by excessive wealth or poverty, by excessive work or idleness,
|
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 Chance by Joseph Conrad: that fool-dog; and (you know how one's memory gets suddenly
stimulated) I was reminded visually, with an almost painful
distinctness, of the ghostly white face of the girl I saw last
accompanied by that dog--deserted by that dog. I almost heard her
distressed voice as if on the verge of resentful tears calling to
the dog, the unsympathetic dog. Perhaps she had not the power of
evoking sympathy, that personal gift of direct appeal to the
feelings. I said to Fyne, mistrusting the supine attitude of the
dog:
"Why don't you let him come inside?"
Oh dear no! He couldn't think of it! I might indeed have saved my
Chance |
