| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: the hand of a lady; spread it, and the armies of the powerful
Sultans might repose beneath its shade.
The knowledge in which Bacon excelled all men was a knowledge
of the mutual relations of all departments of knowledge.
In a letter written when he was only thirty-one, to his uncle,
Lord Burleigh, he said, "I have taken all knowledge to be my province."
Though Bacon did not arm his philosophy with the weapons of logic,
he adorned her profusely with all the richest decorations of rhetoric.
The practical faculty was powerful in Bacon; but not, like
his wit, so powerful as occasionally to usurp the place of his
reason and to tyrannize over the whole man.
What is Man? |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: you'd be done for."
"Blow my character!--your pardon, sir," cried James, starting to
his feet. "W'at do I want of a character? I'll chuck the 'ole
thing, and damned lively, too. The shop's to be sold out, an' my
place is gone any'ow. I'm agoing to enlist, or try the gold
fields. I've lived too long with h'artists; I'd never give
satisfaction in livery now. You know 'ow it is yourself, sir;
there ayn't no life like it, no'ow."
For a moment MacMaster was almost equal to abetting James in
his theft. He reflected that pictures had been whitewashed, or
hidden in the crypts of churches, or under the floors of palaces
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
