| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: "It is the financial column, Ethel, that recalls my story."
Ethel, after a hopeless glance at this, resumed her seat near the sofa by
Mrs. Davenport.
"There were many paintings," continued Richard, "in that Art Building, of
merit incomparably greater than 'Breaking Home Ties'; and yet the crowd
never looked at those, because it did not understand them. But at any
hour of the day, if you happened to pass this picture, it took you some
time to do so. You could pass any of John Sargeant's pictures, for
instance, at a speed limited only by your own powers of running; but you
could never run past 'Breaking Home Ties.' You had to work your way
through the crowd in front of that just as you have to do at a fire, or a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: here. While you were away that Christmas time, why, I was as
lonesome as--oh, you don't know anything about it. I just
scratched off the days on the calendar every night, one by one,
till you got back. And it just comes to this, I want you with me
all the time. I want you should have a home that's my home, too.
I want to take care of you, and have you all for myself, you
understand. What do you say?"
Hilma, standing up before him, retied a knot in her handkerchief
bundle with elaborate precaution, blinking at it through her
tears.
"What do you say, Miss Hilma?" Annixter repeated. "How about
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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 Monster Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs: the struggle that the calm face hid; yet she felt that
the dragging moments were big with the question of her fate.
"Well?" she said at length.
"We must eat first," he replied in a matter-of-fact tone,
and not at all as though he was about to renounce
his life's happiness, "and then we shall set out
in search of your father. I shall take you to him,
Virginia, if man can find him."
"I knew that you could," she said, simply, "but how my
father and I ever can repay you I do not know--do you?"
"Yes," said Bulan, and there was a sudden rush of fire
The Monster Men |
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 A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: the Prince, or asking a fellow traveler what those buildings are; and I
think that the Englishman's notion of his right to privacy lies at the
bottom of quite a number of these things. You may lay some of them to
snobbishness, to caste, to shyness, they may have various secondary
origins; but I prefer to cover them all with the broader term, the right
to privacy, because it seems philosophically to account for them and
explain them.
In May, 1915, an Oxford professor was in New York. A few years before
this I had read a book of his which had delighted me. I met him at lunch,
I had not known him before. Even as we shook hands, I blurted out to him
my admiration for his book.
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