| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: for I have kept up my law studies all these years."
"That's it; that's good grit! I like to see it. I've a notion to throw
all my business your way. My business and your law practice ought to
make a pretty gay team, Dave," and the young fellow laughed again.
"If you will throw--" Wilson had thought of the girl in Tom's bedroom,
and was going to say, "If you will throw the surreptitious and
disreputable part of your business my way, it may amount to something,"
but thought better of it and said,
"However, this matter doesn't fit well in a general conversation."
"All right, we'll change the subject; I guess you were about
to give me another dig, anyway, so I'm willing to change.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: thanksgiving.
Our beloved in the far parts of the earth, those who are now
beginning the labours of the day what time we end them, and those
with whom the sun now stands at the point of noon, bless, help,
console, and prosper them.
Our guard is relieved, the service of the day is over, and the hour
come to rest. We resign into thy hands our sleeping bodies, our
cold hearths, and open doors. Give us to awake with smiles, give
us to labour smiling. As the sun returns in the east, so let our
patience be renewed with dawn; as the sun lightens the world, so
let our loving-kindness make bright this house of our habitation.
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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 The Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: I mended it for him once, so I know it well. I didn't have any
brown thread so I mended it with yellow."
Dr. von Riedau nodded to Muller. The latter had been sitting at a
little side-table writing down the questions and answers. When
Riedau saw this he did not send for a clerk to do the work, for
Muller preferred to attend to such matters himself as much as
possible. The facts gained in the examination were impressed upon
his mind while he was writing them, and he did not have to wade
through pages of manuscript to get at what he needed. Now he handed
his superior officer the paper.
"Thank you," said Riedau, "I'll send it out to the other police
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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 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: consequence of old age, those immortals would in time become
proprietors of the whole nation, and engross the civil power,
which, for want of abilities to manage, must end in the ruin of
the public.
CHAPTER XI.
[The author leaves Luggnagg, and sails to Japan. From thence he
returns in a Dutch ship to Amsterdam, and from Amsterdam to
England.]
I thought this account of the STRULDBRUGS might be some
entertainment to the reader, because it seems to be a little out
of the common way; at least I do not remember to have met the
Gulliver's Travels |
