| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: The watchman, whom we have certainly not forgotten, thought meanwhile of the
galoshes he had found and taken with him to the hospital; he now went to fetch
them; and as neither the lieutenant, nor anybody else in the street, claimed
them as his property, they were delivered over to the police-office.*
* As on the continent, in all law and police practices nothing is verbal, but
any circumstance, however trifling, is reduced to writing, the labor, as well
as the number of papers that thus accumulate, is enormous. In a
police-office, consequently, we find copying-clerks among many other scribes
of various denominations, of which, it seems, our hero was one.
"Why, I declare the Shoes look just like my own," said one of the clerks,
eying the newly-found treasure, whose hidden powers, even he, sharp as he was,
Fairy Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: the summit of a hill about two miles distant down the river. The
cry was up that the Sioux were coming. In an instant the village
was in an uproar. Men, women, and children were all brawling and
shouting; dogs barking, yelping, and howling. Some of the
warriors ran for the horses to gather and drive them in from the
prairie, some for their weapons. As fast as they could arm and
equip they sallied forth; some on horseback, some on foot. Some
hastily arrayed in their war dress, with coronets of fluttering
feathers, and their bodies smeared with paint; others naked and
only furnished with the weapons they had snatched up. The women
and children gathered on the tops of the lodges and heightened
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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 Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: It was already long past midnight. Artaban rode in haste,
and Vasda, restored by the brief rest, ran eagerly through the
silent plain and swam the channels of the river. She put
forth the remnant of her strength, and fled over the ground
like a gazelle.
But the first beam of the rising sun sent a long shadow before
her as she entered upon the final stadium of the journey, and the
eyes of Artaban, anxiously scanning the great mound of Nimrod and
the Temple of the Seven Spheres, could discern no trace of his
friends.
The many-coloured terraces of black and orange and red and
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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 Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: out of London, and installed himself in the city amidst the
citizens, by order of the parliament; then, at the moment
when the citizens were crying out against Monk -- at the
moment when the soldiers themselves were accusing their
leader -- Monk, finding himself certain of a majority,
declared to the Rump Parliament that it must abdicate -- be
dissolved -- and yield its place to a government which would
not be a joke. Monk pronounced this declaration, supported
by fifty thousand swords, to which, that same evening, were
united, with shouts of delirious joy, the five hundred
thousand inhabitants of the good city of London. At length,
Ten Years Later |
