| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey: whisper could never have been better expressed in longer speech. Then
slightly, ever so slightly, she tilted her sweet face up to his.
It all happened with the quickness of thought. In a single instant Jim saw the
radiant face, the outstretched hands, and heard the glad whisper. He knew that
she had a again mistaken him for Joe; but for his life he could not draw back
his head. He had kissed her, and even as his lips thrilled with her tremulous
caress he flushed with the shame of his deceit.
"You're mistaken again--I'm Jim," he whispered.
For a moment they stood staring into each other's eyes, slowly awakening to
what had really happened, slowly conscious of a sweet, alluring power. Then
Colonel Zane's cheery voice rang in their ears.
The Spirit of the Border |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: four hundred dollars each, and less than eighty-seven days' cost
of war would pay for all in Delaware, Maryland, the District of
Columbia, Kentucky and Missouri. "Do you doubt," he asked, that
taking such a step "on the part of those States and this District
would shorten the war more than eighty-seven days, and thus be an
actual saving of expense?"
Both houses of Congress favored the resolution, and also passed a
bill immediately freeing the slaves in the District of Columbia
on the payment to their loyal owners of three hundred dollars for
each slave. This last bill was signed by the President and became
a law on April 16, 1862. So, although he had been unable to bring
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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 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: and t'other we stuck in the band of Uncle Silas's hat,
which was on the bureau, because we heard the chil-
dren say their pa and ma was going to the runaway
nigger's house this morning, and then went to break-
fast, and Tom dropped the pewter spoon in Uncle
Silas's coat-pocket, and Aunt Sally wasn't come yet,
so we had to wait a little while.
And when she come she was hot and red and cross,
and couldn't hardly wait for the blessing; and then
she went to sluicing out coffee with one hand and
cracking the handiest child's head with her thimble
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
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 Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: of the Morning whose task was finished. On the knife-edged
skyline appeared the silhouette of slim-legged little Tommies,
flirting their rails, sniffing at the dewy grass, dainty,
slender, confiding, the open-day antithesis of the tremendous and
awesome lord of the darkness that had roared its way to its lair,
and to the massive shaggy herald of morning that had thundered
down to the west.
III. THE CENTRAL PLATEAU
Now is required a special quality of the imagination, not in
myself, but in my readers, for it becomes necessary for them to
grasp the logic of a whole country in one mental effort. The
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