| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: The slow wind flows, drearily streams and falls,
With a mournful sound down rain-dark walls.
On one side purples the lustrous dusk of the sea,
And dreams in white at the city's feet;
On one side sleep the plains, with heaped-up hills.
Oaks and beeches whisper in rings about it.
Above the trees are towers where dread bells beat.
The fisherman draws his streaming net from the sea
And sails toward the far-off city, that seems
Like one vague tower.
The dark bow plunges to foam on blue-black waves,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Oakdale Affair by Edgar Rice Burroughs: an' he eat swill. I do that to-night. Beppo, he got to be
fed or he eat Giova. I go feed Beppo, you go get food
for us; then we all meet at edge of wood just other side
town near old mill."
During the remainder of the afternoon and well after
dark the party remained hidden in the willows. Then
Giova started out with Beppo in search of garbage cans,
Bridge bent his steps toward a small store upon the
outskirts of town where food could be purchased, The
Oskaloosa Kid having donated a ten dollar bill for the
stocking of the commissariat, and the youth and the
The Oakdale Affair |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: life is very useful to me. . . . Her manners are very pleasing and
entirely unaffected. She has great tact and quickness of
perception, great intelligence and amiability and is altogether
extremely well-fitted for the ROLE she plays in life. Her husband
is charming. . . . They have three children, very lovely. The
eldest, Victor, a fine boy of seven years old, Victoria, a girl of
four, for whom the Queen was sponsor, and Albert, to whom Prince
Albert performed the same office. This was, of course, voluntary in
the royal parties, as it was not a favor to be asked. . . . Madam
Van de Weyer is not spoiled, certainly, by the prominent part she
was called to play in this great centre of the world at so early an
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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 The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: connections,
to verify and place himself, to know who and where he was.
At last it grew clear. John Weightman was sitting on a stone,
not far from a road in a strange land.
The road was not a formal highway, fenced and graded. It was
more like
a great travel-trace, worn by thousands of feet passing across
the open country in the same direction. Down in the valley,
into which he could look, the road seemed to form itself
gradually out of
many minor paths; little footways coming across the meadows,
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