| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: perform in the aid of the South, no adventure to perilous for
him to undertake if consistent with the character of a
civilian who was at heart a soldier, and who in good faith
and without too much qualification assented to at least a
part of the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in
love and war.
One evening while Fahrquhar and his wife were sitting on a
rustic bench near the entrance to his grounds, a gray-clad
soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water.
Mrs. Fahrquhar was only too happy to serve him with her own
white hands. While she was fetching the water her husband
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: between the pretender and the honest man.
The causes of this state of society, which is peculiar to Britain,
must be sought far back in the ages. It would seem that the
distinction between "earl and churl" (the noble and the non-noble
freeman) was crushed out in this island by the two Norman conquests-
-that of the Anglo-Saxon nobility by Sweyn and Canute; and that of
the Anglo-Danish nobility by William and his Frenchmen. Those two
terrible calamities, following each other in the short space of
fifty years, seem to have welded together, by a community of
suffering, all ranks and races, at least south of the Tweed; and
when the English rose after the storm, they rose as one homogeneous
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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 Market-Place by Harold Frederic: I have scarcely been out of England before."
"Why now"--he paused, to think briefly upon his words--"I
took it for granted you were showing Miss Madden around."
"It 's quite the other way about," she answered, with a
cold little laugh. "It is she who is showing me around.
It is her tour. I am the chaperone." Thorpe dwelt upon
the word in his mind. He understood what it meant only
in a way, but he was luminously clear as to the bitterness
of the tone in which it had been uttered.
"No--it didn't seem as if it were altogether--what I
might call--YOUR tour," he ventured. They had seen much
The Market-Place |
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 Mayflower Compact: combine ourselves together into a civill Body Politick,
for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance
of the Ends aforesaid; And by Virtue hereof do enact,
constitute, and frame, such just and equall Laws, Ordinances,
Acts, Constitutions, and Offices, from time to time,
as shall be thought most meete and convenient for the
Generall Good of the Colonie; unto which we promise
all due Submission and Obedience.
In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names
at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Raigne of our
Sovereigne Lord, King James of England, France, and Ireland,
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