| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery: forever from mortal eyes.
"No. But please, Marilla, go away and don't look at me. I'm in
the depths of despair and I don't care who gets head in class or
writes the best composition or sings in the Sunday-school choir
any more. Little things like that are of no importance now
because I don't suppose I'll ever be able to go anywhere again.
My career is closed. Please, Marilla, go away and don't look at me."
"Did anyone ever hear the like?" the mystified Marilla wanted to know.
"Anne Shirley, whatever is the matter with you? What have you done?
Get right up this minute and tell me. This minute, I say. There now,
what is it?"
Anne of Green Gables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: which his son kicked him. He slipped his arm about Carol's
shoulder; he went down to supper rejoicing that he was cleansed
of perilous stuff. While Carol was putting the baby to bed
he sat on the front steps. Nat Hicks, tailor and roue, came
to sit beside him. Between waves of his hand as he drove
off mosquitos, Nat whispered, "Say, doc, you don't feel like
imagining you're a bacheldore again, and coming out for a Time
tonight, do you?"
"As how?"
"You know this new dressmaker, Mrs. Swiftwaite?--swell
dame with blondine hair? Well, she's a pretty good goer.
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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 Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: shelves were filled with playthings, and after quickly supplying the
little ones living near by he saw he must now extend his travels to
wider fields.
Remembering the time when he had journeyed with Ak through all the
world, he know children were everywhere, and he longed to make as many
as possible happy with his gifts.
So he loaded a great sack with all kinds of toys, slung it upon his
back that he might carry it more easily, and started off on a longer
trip than he had yet undertaken.
Wherever he showed his merry face, in hamlet or in farmhouse, he
received a cordial welcome, for his fame had spread into far lands.
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus |
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 Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: vision, too, of the long, rough country lad, perhaps a serious
courtier of the lasses in the hawthorn den, perhaps a rustic
dancer on the green, who had first earned and answered to that
harsh diminutive. And I asked myself if, on the whole, poor
Ecky had succeeded in life; if the last state of that man were not
on the whole worse than the first; and the house in Randolph
Crescent a less admirable dwelling than the hamlet where he
saw the day and grew to manhood. Here was a consolatory
thought for one who was himself a failure.
Yes, I declare the word came in my mind; and all the while, in
another partition of the brain, I was glowing and singing for my
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