| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: Saddened me, slowed me down. Such things will happen,
Life is composed of them; and it seems wisdom
To see them clearly, meditate upon them,
And understand what things flow out of them.
Otherwise, all goes on here much as always.
Why won't you come and see us, in the spring,
And bring old times with you?--If you could see me
Sitting here by the window, watching Venus
Go down behind my neighbor's poplar branches,--
Just where you used to sit,--I'm sure you'd come.
This year, they say, the springtime will be early.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: were broad acres, ready to fall wholly to the husband, to lend dignity
to his descendants, and to himself a title, when he should be called
upon the Bench. On the side of Jean, there was perhaps some fascination
of curiosity as to this unknown male animal that approached her with the
roughness of a ploughman and the APLOMB of an advocate. Being so
trenchantly opposed to all she knew, loved, or understood, he may well
have seemed to her the extreme, if scarcely the ideal, of his sex. And
besides, he was an ill man to refuse. A little over forty at the period
of his marriage, he looked already older, and to the force of manhood
added the senatorial dignity of years; it was, perhaps, with an
unreverend awe, but he was awful. The Bench, the Bar, and the most
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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 Astoria by Washington Irving: their little stock of valuables; and without them they would be
reduced, during a great portion of the year, to a state of abject
misery and privation. They have no brood mares, nor any trade
sufficiently valuable to supply their yearly losses, and endeavor
to keep up their stock by stealing horses from the other tribes
to the west and southwest. Our own people, and the tribes
immediately upon our borders, may indeed be protected from their
depredations; and the Kanzas, Osages, Pawnees, and others, may be
induced to remain at peace among themselves, so long as they are
permitted to pursue the old custom of levying upon the Camanches
and other remote nations for their complement of steeds for the
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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 The Young Forester by Zane Grey: roused my anger after that. What would have happened had he taken a notion
to go through the brush? Luckily he kept to the trail, which certainly was
rough enough. So, with watching the cub and keeping my feet free of roots
and rocks, I had no chance to look ahead. Still I had no concern about
this, for the old hunter was at my heels, and I knew he would keep a sharp
lookout.
Before I was aware of it we had gotten out of the narrow canyon into a
valley with well-timbered bottom, and open, slow rising slopes. We were
getting down into Penetier. Cubby swerved from the trail and started up the
left slope. I did not want to go, but I had to keep with him, and that was
the only way. The hunter strode behind without speaking, and so I gathered
The Young Forester |
