| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: too."
"We're every bit as good as Medina's crowd!" said a
tall, broad-shouldered man with a black beard and bushy
eyebrows.
"By God, if I don't own a Mauser and a lot of car-
tridges, if I can't get a pair of trousers and shoes, then
my name's not Anastasio Montanez! Look here, Quail,
you don't believe it, do you? You ask my partner
Demetrio if I haven't half a dozen bullets in me already.
Christ! Bullets are marbles to me! And I dare you to
contradict me!"
The Underdogs |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll: 'The man,' says Johnson, 'that would make
A pun, would pick a pocket!'"
"A man," said he, "is not a King."
I argued for a while,
And did my best to prove the thing -
The Phantom merely listening
With a contemptuous smile.
At last, when, breath and patience spent,
I had recourse to smoking -
"Your AIM," he said, "is excellent:
But - when you call it ARGUMENT -
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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 Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery: books and that sort of thing when you didn't have to. Frank Stockley
had lots more dash and go, but then he wasn't half as good-looking as
Gilbert and she really couldn't decide which she liked best!
In the Academy Anne gradually drew a little circle of friends about her,
thoughtful, imaginative, ambitious students like herself. With the
"rose-red" girl, Stella Maynard, and the "dream girl," Priscilla Grant,
she soon became intimate, finding the latter pale spiritual-looking
maiden to be full to the brim of mischief and pranks and fun,
while the vivid, black-eyed Stella had a heartful of wistful
dreams and fancies, as aerial and rainbow-like as Anne's own.
After the Christmas holidays the Avonlea students gave
Anne of Green Gables |
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 Theaetetus by Plato: another would have produced the same effect. All sensation is to be
resolved into a similar combination of an agent and patient. Of either,
taken separately, no idea can be formed; and the agent may become a
patient, and the patient an agent. Hence there arises a general reflection
that nothing is, but all things become; no name can detain or fix them.
Are not these speculations charming, Theaetetus, and very good for a person
in your interesting situation? I am offering you specimens of other men's
wisdom, because I have no wisdom of my own, and I want to deliver you of
something; and presently we will see whether you have brought forth wind or
not. Tell me, then, what do you think of the notion that "All things are
becoming"?'
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