| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: Some of the damsels mounted on pillions behind their favorite
swains, and their light-hearted laughter, mingling with the
clatter of hoofs, echoed along the silent woodlands, sounding
fainter and fainter, until they gradually died away, --and the
late scene of noise and frolic was all silent and deserted.
Ichabod only lingered behind, according to the custom of country
lovers, to have a tete-a-tete with the heiress; fully convinced
that he was now on the high road to success. What passed at this
interview I will not pretend to say, for in fact I do not know.
Something, however, I fear me, must have gone wrong, for he
certainly sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Kidnapped Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: some time after he had disappeared. But finally they missed his
cheery voice, and as their master always sang or whistled on his
journeys, the silence warned them that something was wrong.
Little Wisk stuck out his head from underneath the seat and found
Santa Claus gone and no one to direct the flight of the reindeer.
"Whoa!" he called out, and the deer obediently slackened speed and
came to a halt.
Peter and Nuter and Kilter all jumped upon the seat and looked back
over the track made by the sleigh. But Santa Claus had been left
miles and miles behind.
"What shall we do?" asked Wisk anxiously, all the mirth and mischief
A Kidnapped Santa Claus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: after a few days.
John Bright is noted for an incurable disease.
Lord James Gordon Bennet instigated the Gordon Riots.
The Middle Ages come in between antiquity and posterity.
Luther introduced Christianity into England a good many
thousand years ago. His birthday was November 1883. He was once
a Pope. He lived at the time of the Rebellion of Worms.
Julius Caesar is noted for his famous telegram dispatch I
came I saw I conquered.
Julius Caesar was really a very great man. He was a very
great soldier and wrote a book for beginners in the Latin.
What is Man? |
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 Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod,
and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum.
There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be
touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life
and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can
be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that
in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor
propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded
from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which
concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance
of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had
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