| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Heritage of the Desert by Zane Grey: wandered to the crags.
"Nothing," she replied.
"But there must be something. You have given me no chance to talk to
you, and I wanted to know if you'd let me speak to Father Naab."
"To Father Naab? Why--what about?"
"About you, of course--and me--that I love you and want to marry you."
She turned white. "No--no!"
Hare paused blankly, not so much at her refusal as at the unmistakable
fear in her face.
"Why--not?" he asked presently, with an odd sense of trouble. There was
more here than Mescal's habitual shyness.
The Heritage of the Desert |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Before Adam by Jack London: nevertheless, too rude to live in it. He tended always
to destroy the horde by his unsocial acts. He was
really a reversion to an earlier type, and his place
was with the Tree People rather than with us who were
in the process of becoming men.
He was a monster of cruelty, which is saying a great
deal in that day. He beat his wives--not that he ever
had more than one wife at a time, but that he was
married many times. It was impossible for any woman to
live with him, and yet they did live with him, out of
compulsion. There was no gainsaying him.
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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 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: He beheld civil war laid open like a gulf before him, and into this
he was about to fall. Then he shuddered.
He thought of his father's sword, which his grandfather had sold
to a second-hand dealer, and which he had so mournfully regretted.
He said to himself that that chaste and valiant sword had done
well to escape from him, and to depart in wrath into the gloom;
that if it had thus fled, it was because it was intelligent and
because it had foreseen the future; that it had had a presentiment
of this rebellion, the war of the gutters, the war of the pavements,
fusillades through cellar-windows, blows given and received in the rear;
it was because, coming from Marengo and Friedland, it did not wish
Les Miserables |
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 Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: before he was able to get up the courage to call on this doctor.
And oh, the shame and horror of sitting in his waiting-room with
the other people, none of whom dared to look each other in the
eyes! They must all be afflicted, George thought, and he glanced
at them furtively, looking for the various symptoms of which he
had read. Or were there, perhaps, some like himself--merely
victims of a foolish error, coming to have the hag of dread
pulled from off their backs?
And then suddenly, while he was speculating, there stood the
doctor, signaling to him. His turn had come!
CHAPTER II
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