| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: "What reunion do you mean?" I asked, not without amazement.
"Not the Bowden Family's? I thought that was going to take place
in September."
"To-day's the day. They sent word the middle o' the week. I
thought you might have heard of it. Yes, they changed the day. I
been thinkin' we'd talk it over, but you never can tell beforehand
how it's goin' to be, and 'taint worth while to wear a day all out
before it comes." Mrs. Todd gave no place to the pleasures of
anticipation, but she spoke like the oracle that she was. "I wish
mother was here to go," she continued sadly. "I did look for her
last night, and I couldn't keep back the tears when the dark really
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: was published in 1917, by the George H. Doran Company, New York, and is
entitled The American Revolution in our School Textbooks. Here following
are some of his discoveries:
Of forty school histories used twenty years ago in sixty-eight cities,
and in many more unreported, four tell the truth about King George's
pocket Parliament, and thirty-two suppress it. To-day our books are not
quite so bad, but it is not very much better; and-to-day, be it added,
any reforming of these textbooks by Boards of Education is likely to be
prevented, wherever obstruction is possible, by every influence visible
and invisible that pro-German and pro-Irish propaganda can exert.
Thousands of our American school children all over our country are still
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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 Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: project.
Copley, the celebrated painter, then a young man and a resident
of Boston, came one day to visit Drowne; for he had recognized so
much of moderate ability in the carver as to induce him, in the
dearth of professional sympathy, to cultivate his acquaintance.
On entering the shop, the artist glanced at the inflexible image
of king, commander, dame, and allegory, that stood around, on the
best of which might have been bestowed the questionable praise
that it looked as if a living man had here been changed to wood,
and that not only the physical, but the intellectual and
spiritual part, partook of the stolid transformation. But in not
Mosses From An Old Manse |
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 A Kidnapped Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: see them prosper."
In spite of the second rebuff, the Daemon of Hatred thought he would
try to influence Santa Claus. So the next day he entered the busy
workshop and said:
"Good morning, Santa! I have bad news for you."
"Then run away, like a good fellow," answered Santa Claus. "Bad news
is something that should be kept secret and never told."
"You cannot escape this, however," declared the Daemon; "for in the
world are a good many who do not believe in Santa Claus, and these you
are bound to hate bitterly, since they have so wronged you."
"Stuff and rubbish!" cried Santa.
A Kidnapped Santa Claus |
