| 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: title for my story, as you shall see. Is it not strange that if you add
'in-law' to the word 'mother,' how immediately the sentiment of the term
is altered?--as strongly indeed as when you prefix the word 'step' to it.
But it is with neither of these composite forms of mother that any story
deals.
"Ethel has always maintained that if I had really understood her, it
never would have happened. She says--"
"Richard, I"--
"My dear, you shall tell your story afterwards, and I promise to listen
without a word until you are finished. Mrs. Field says that if I had
understood her nature as a man ought to understand the girl he has been
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: occupations which have names among servants?
THEAETETUS: Yes, there are many such; which of them do you mean?
STRANGER: I mean such as sifting, straining, winnowing, threshing.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And besides these there are a great many more, such as carding,
spinning, adjusting the warp and the woof; and thousands of similar
expressions are used in the arts.
THEAETETUS: Of what are they to be patterns, and what are we going to do
with them all?
STRANGER: I think that in all of these there is implied a notion of
division.
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