| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: "you'll have show enough, all in good time, don't
you fret about that. Go 'long with you now, and do
as your mother told you."
When we got up-stairs to his room he got me a
coarse shirt and a roundabout and pants of his, and I
put them on. While I was at it he asked me what my
name was, but before I could tell him he started to tell
me about a bluejay and a young rabbit he had catched
in the woods day before yesterday, and he asked me
where Moses was when the candle went out. I said I
didn't know; I hadn't heard about it before, no way.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: Washes the trees with silver, and the wave
Creeps grey and chilly up this sandy dune,
The croaking frogs are out, and from the cave
The nightjar shrieks, the fluttering bats repass,
And the brown stoat with hollow flanks creeps through the dusky
grass.
Nay, though thou art a god, be not so coy,
For in yon stream there is a little reed
That often whispers how a lovely boy
Lay with her once upon a grassy mead,
Who when his cruel pleasure he had done
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: "And if I have forgotten, madam, in praising her to praise him
also, have I not done that which would have best pleased his
heroical and chivalrous spirit? He, be sure, would have forgotten
his own virtue in the light of hers; and he would have wished me, I
doubt not, to do the same also. And beside, madam, where ladies
are the theme, who has time or heart to cast one thought upon their
slaves?" And the Don made one of his deliberate and highly-
finished bows.
"Don Guzman is courtier enough, as far as compliments go," said one
of the young ladies; "but it was hardly courtier-like of him to
find us so sad an entertainment, upon a merry evening."
|
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 The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: Whatever the changes in me for the worse, my love for you, at least, has
grown better, finer, purer.
And now for your second question, "Are you coming home as soon as you are
well again?" . . . Carley, I am well. I have delayed telling you this
because I knew you would expect me to rush back East with the telling. But-
-the fact is, Carley, I am not coming--just yet. I wish it were possible
for me to make you understand. For a long time I seem to have been frozen
within. You know when I came back from France I couldn't talk. It's almost
as bad as that now. Yet all that I was then seems to have changed again. It
is only fair to you to tell you that, as I feel now, I hate the city, I
hate people, and particularly I hate that dancing, drinking, lounging set
The Call of the Canyon |
