| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: it, and instruction too,--if we can but find it out.
--Here is the scaffold work of Instruction, its true point of folly,
without the Building behind it.
--Here is the glass for pedagogues, preceptors, tutors, governors, gerund-
grinders, and bear-leaders to view themselves in, in their true
dimensions.--
Oh! there is a husk and shell, Yorick, which grows up with learning, which
their unskilfulness knows not how to fling away!
--Sciences May Be Learned by Rote But Wisdom Not.
Yorick thought my father inspired.--I will enter into obligations this
moment, said my father, to lay out all my aunt Dinah's legacy in charitable
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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 Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: atmosphere more favourable to his plan of education. There were a
good many people who really fished, and short expeditions in the
woods were quite fashionable. Cornelia had a camping-costume of the
most approved style made by Dewlap on Fifth Avenue,--pearl-gray with
linings of rose-silk,--and consented to go with her husband on a
trip up Moose River. They pitched their tent the first evening at
the mouth of Misery Stream, and a storm came on. The rain sifted
through the canvas in a fine spray, and Mrs. De Peyster sat up all
night in a waterproof cloak, holding an umbrella. The next day they
were back at the hotel in time for lunch.
"It was horrid," she told her most intimate friend, "perfectly
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