| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: Unitarian and a liberal, who organized "Lend-a-Hand Clubs" and
such like amiabilities. "Do You Love This Old Man?" the signs in
the street-cars used to ask when I was a boy; and I promptly
answered "Yes"--for my mother took the "Ladies' Home Journal",
and I swallowed the sentimental dish-water set out for me. But
when I read the Rev. Edward's funeral oration over the Irrev.
Mark, I loved neither of them any longer. "This whole-souled
child of God," cried the Rev. Edward, "who believed in success,
and knew how to succeed by using the infinite powers!" You
perceive that the Chaplain of the Millionaires' Club agrees with
this book, that the "infinite powers" in America are the powers
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft: thing. The old lady never recovered from her sad
affliction.
At the sale she was brought up first, and after
being vulgarly criticised, in the presence of all her
distressed family, was sold to a cotton planter, who
said he wanted the "proud old critter to go to his
plantation, to look after the little woolly heads,
while their mammies were working in the field."
When the sale was over, then came the separa-
tion, and
"O, deep was the anguish of that slave mother's heart,
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from 1492 by Mary Johntson: AT first, the day before, we had not made out that the
Indians had boats. Later, straying here and there,
we had seen them drawn upon the shore and covered
with boughs of trees. They called them ``canoes'', made
them, large and small, out of trunks of trees, hollowed by
fire, and with their stone knives. We had seen one copper
knife. Asked about that, they pointed to the south and
seemed to say that yonder dwelled men who had all they
wished of most things.
From dark the east grew pale, from pallor put on roses.
This day no mariner grumbled at the call to awake. Here
|
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 Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: During the ceremony, for such it was, the Germans loving a
ceremony, Jimmy kept his eyes on the letter in Anna Gates's hand
and waited. That the letter had come was enough. He lay back in
anticipatory joy, and let himself be talked over, and bathrobed,
and his hair parted Austrian fashion and turned up over a finger,
which is very Austrian indeed. He liked Harmony. The girl caught
his eyes on her more than once. He interrupted the speech once to
ask her just what part of the robe she had made, and whether she
had made the tassel. When she admitted the tassel, his admiration
became mixed with respect.
It was a bright day, for a marvel. Sunlight came through the
|
