| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: the Plate, the Orinoco, the St. Lawrence, and the Mississippi
will produce. Perchance, when, in the course of ages, American
liberty has become a fiction of the past--as it is to some extent
a fiction of the present--the poets of the world will be inspired
by American mythology.
The wildest dreams of wild men, even, are not the less true,
though they may not recommend themselves to the sense which is
most common among Englishmen and Americans today. It is not every
truth that recommends itself to the common sense. Nature has a
place for the wild Clematis as well as for the cabbage. Some
expressions of truth are reminiscent--others merely SENSIBLE, as
Walking |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Case of the Golden Bullet by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: make researches had discovered nothing of value. The murderer
might easily feel that he was absolutely safe by this time.
The day after the publication of the article we have quoted, Muller
appeared in Bauer's office and asked for a few days' leave.
"In the Fellner case?" asked the Chief with his usual calm, and
Muller replied in the affirmative.
Two days later he returned, bringing with him nothing but a single
little notice.
"Marie Dorn, now Mrs. Kniepp," was one line in his notebook, and
beside it some dates. The latter showed that Marie Dorn had for
two years past been the wife of the Archducal Forest-Councillor,
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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 Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: "Yais. Didn't you know?"
"The V-C phosphate works?"
"Why, yais. Haven't you been to see them yet? He ought to, oughtn't he,
David? 'Specially now they've found those deposits up the river were just
as rich as they hoped, after all."
"Whose? Mr. Mayrant's?" I asked with such sharpness that the bride was
surprised.
David hadn't attended to the name. It was some trust estate, he thought;
Regent Tom, or some such thing
"And they thought it was no good," said the bride. "And it's aivry bit as
good as the Coosaw used to be. Better than Florida or Tennessee."
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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 Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: manifestation in our own hearts; it works no otherwise upon the sons of men
than through man. And shall I feel no bond binding me to the men to come,
and desire no good or beauty for them--I, who am what I am, and enjoy what
I enjoy, because for countless ages in the past men have lived and
laboured, who lived not for themselves alone, and counted no costs? Would
the great statue, the great poem, the great reform ever be accomplished, if
men counted the cost and created for their own lives alone? And no man
liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. You cannot tell me not to
love the men who shall be after me; a soft voice within me, I know not
what, cries out ever, 'Live for them as for your own children.' When in
the circle of my own small life all is dark, and I despair, hope springs up
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