| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale: Many a holy gift you gave me,
Music and friends and happy love
More than my dearest dreaming of;
And now in this wide twilight hour
With earth and heaven a dark, blue flower,
In a humble mood I bless
Your wisdom -- and your waywardness.
You brought me even here, where I
Live on a hill against the sky
And look on mountains and the sea
And a thin white moon in the pepper tree.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell: increase the dividend of commodities. Where there
is so much more leisure than there is now, there will
be many more people with a knowledge of science or
an understanding of art. The artist or scientific
investigator will be far less cut off than he is at
present from the average citizen, and this will almost
inevitably be a stimulus to his creative energy.
I think we may fairly conclude that, from the
point of view of all three requisites for art and science,
namely, training, freedom and appreciation, State
Socialism would largely fail to remove existing
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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 Heart of the West by O. Henry: "The clock," cried old "Kiowa" loudly. "The eight-day clock used to
stand there. Why--"
He turned to Ranse, but Ranse was not there.
Already a hundred yards away, Vaminos, the good flea-bitten dun, was
bearing him eastward like a racer through dust and chaparral towards
the Rancho de los Olmos.
X
CUPID A LA CARTE
"The dispositions of woman," said Jeff Peters, after various opinions
on the subject had been advanced, "run, regular, to diversions. What a
woman wants is what you're out of. She wants more of a thing when it's
Heart of the West |
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 In the Cage by Henry James: whereupon he said he wished not to purchase, but only to consult
one a moment; with which, the copy kept on loan being produced, he
once more wandered off.
What was he doing to her? What did he want of her? Well, it was
just the aggravation of his "See here!" She felt at this moment
strangely and portentously afraid of him--had in her ears the hum
of a sense that, should it come to that kind of tension, she must
fly on the spot to Chalk Farm. Mixed with her dread and with her
reflexion was the idea that, if he wanted her so much as he seemed
to show, it might be after all simply to do for him the "anything"
she had promised, the "everything" she had thought it so fine to
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