| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: toward that career of art which consists only in the tasting and
recording of experience.
This, which is not so much a vocation for art as an impatience of
all other honest trades, frequently exists alone; and so existing,
it will pass gently away in the course of years. Emphatically, it
is not to be regarded; it is not a vocation, but a temptation; and
when your father the other day so fiercely and (in my view) so
properly discouraged your ambition, he was recalling not improbably
some similar passage in his own experience. For the temptation is
perhaps nearly as common as the vocation is rare. But again we
have vocations which are imperfect; we have men whose minds are
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: Apostle to the Gentiles.
You go to a so-called "divorce-court," which is dominated by this
Christian taboo, and exists for the purpose of barring you from a
second chance at the gratification of your unclean animal desire.
You are not permitted to tell your own story, for that would be
"collusion;" you listen while your intimate friends recite the
pitiful and shameful details of your domestic misfortune, under
the cross-questioning of lawyers who have suppressed for the time
whatever decent instincts they may possess, and follow blindly
the details of a prescribed procedure, at the cost of all
sincerity, humanity and truth. The next morning you find that the
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: tell whether it was four o'clock or seven unless you looked at
your watch. To do that it was necessary to turn on the light.
And to turn on the light meant that he would turn on, too, a
flood of querulous protest from his wife, Bella, who lay asleep
beside him.
When for forty-five years of your life you have risen at
four-thirty daily, it is difficult to learn to loll. To do it
successfully, you must be a natural- born loller to begin with
and revert. Bella Westerveld was and had. So there she lay,
asleep. Old Ben wasn't and hadn't. So there he lay, terribly
wide- awake, wondering what made his heart thump so fast when he
One Basket |
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 Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: The next moment, close to the net, I saw a ball rebound in mid-air and empty
space, and at the same instant, a score of feet away, Paul Tichlorne emitted a
rainbow flash. It could not be he from whom the ball had rebounded, and with
sickening dread I realized that Lloyd Inwood had come upon the scene. To make
sure, I looked for his shadow, and there it was, a shapeless blotch the girth
of his body, (the sun was overhead), moving along the ground. I remembered his
threat, and felt sure that all the long years of rivalry were about to
culminate in uncanny battle.
I cried a warning to Paul, and heard a snarl as of a wild beast, and an
answering snarl. I saw the dark blotch move swiftly across the court, and a
brilliant burst of vari-colored light moving with equal swiftness to meet it;
|
