| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Young Forester by Zane Grey: peered around a projecting corner of wall. There sat a huge black bear on
his haunches holding up a great steel trap which clutched one of his paws.
It was such a strange sight that my fear was forgotten. There was something
almost human in the way the bear looked at that trap. He touched it
gingerly with his free paw, and nosed it. I crept up close to the corner of
stone and looked around again. The bear was now close to me. I saw the
heavy chain and the log to which it was attached. He looked at trap and log
in a grave, pathetic way, as if trying to reason about them. Then he roused
into furious action, swinging the trap, dragging the log, and bellowing in
such a frightful manner that I dodged back behind the wall.
But this sudden change in the bear, this appalling roar with its note of
The Young Forester |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: With mickle pain, he drew forth of his bed,
And scant of strength to stand, to move or go,
Thither he staggered, reeling to and fro.
LXXXI
When he came there, and in her breast espied
His handiwork, that deep and cruel wound,
And her sweet face with leaden paleness dyed,
Where beauty late spread forth her beams around,
He trembled so, that nere his squires beside
To hold him up, he had sunk down to ground,
And said, "O face in death still sweet and fair!
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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 Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: In Flo Hutter then Carley saw another and a different spirit of the West, a
violence unrestrained and fierce that showed in the girl's even voice and
in the piercing light of her eyes.
They went back to the horses, got their lunches from the saddlebags, and,
finding comfortable seats in a sunny, protected place, they ate and talked.
Carley had to force herself to swallow. It seemed that the horrid odor of
dip and sheep had permeated everything. Glenn had known her better than she
had known herself, and he had wished to spare her an unnecessary and
disgusting experience. Yet so stubborn was Carley that she did not regret
going through with it.
"Carley, I don't mind telling you that you've stuck it out better than any
The Call of the Canyon |
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 Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: that enough? Dim, formless suspicions of something more vital
wandered about his mind. Was the young lady impatient for
experience? Was she adventurous? As a man of the world he did
not think it becoming to accept maidenly calm as anything more
than a mask. Warm life was behind that always, even if it slept.
If it was not an actual personal lover, it still might be the
lover not yet incarnate, not yet perhaps suspected. . . .
He had diverged only a little from the truth when he said that
his chief interest in life was women. It wasn't so much women as
Woman that engaged his mind. His was the Latin turn of thinking;
he had fallen in love at thirteen, and he was still capable--he
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