| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: culture such as our district schools and colleges do not
contemplate. Even Mahomet, though many may scream at his name,
had a good deal more to live for, aye, and to die for, than they
have commonly.
When, at rare intervals, some thought visits one, as perchance he
is walking on a railroad, then, indeed, the cars go by without
his hearing them. But soon, by some inexorable law, our life goes
by and the cars return.
"Gentle breeze, that wanderest unseen,
And bendest the thistles round Loira of storms,
Traveler of the windy glens,
Walking |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: 'Have a Bath Oliver,' said Dan, and he passed over the
squashy envelope with the eggs.
'By Oak, Ash and Thorn,' cried Puck, taking off his
blue cap, 'I like you too. Sprinkle a plenty salt on the
biscuit, Dan, and I'll eat it with you. That'll show you the
sort of person I am. Some of us' - he went on, with his
mouth full - 'couldn't abide Salt, or Horse-shoes over a
door, or Mountain-ash berries, or Running Water, or
Cold Iron, or the sound of Church Bells. But I'm Puck!'
He brushed the crumbs carefully from his doublet and
shook hands.
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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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: letters.
"Given up trying to see the ghost." Her heart beat a little at
the experiment she was making.
Her husband, laying his letters aside, moved away into the shadow
of the hearth.
"I never tried," he said, tearing open the wrapper of a
newspaper.
"Well, of course," Mary persisted, "the exasperating thing is
that there's no use trying, since one can't be sure till so long
afterward."
He was unfolding the paper as if he had hardly heard her; but
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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 Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: were left without a thicket to cover their nakedness. This
change in the vegetation marks the commencement of the
grand calcareo argillaceous deposit, which forms the wide
extent of the Pampas, and covers the granitic rocks of Banda
Oriental. From the Strait of Magellan to the Colorado, a
distance of about eight hundred miles, the face of the country
is everywhere composed of shingle: the pebbles are
chiefly of porphyry, and probably owe their origin to the
rocks of the Cordillera. North of the Colorado this bed
thins out, and the pebbles become exceedingly small, and
here the characteristic vegetation of Patagonia ceases.
The Voyage of the Beagle |
