| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: That morning of the 18th, while McClellan was holdin' us squattin' and
cussin'," he was saying to Bertie, when some sort of shuffling sound in
the corner caught their attention. We can never know how it happened.
Billy ought to know, but does not, and Mrs. Diggs allowed no subsequent
reference to the casualty. But there she stood with her entire hair at
right angles. The Grecian knot extended above her left ear, and her
nose stuck through one set of Anne d'Autriche. Beside her Billy stood,
solemn as a stone, yet with a sort of relief glazed upon his face.
Mr. Diggs sat straight up at the vision of his spouse. "Flouncing
Florence!" was his exclamation. "Gee-whittaker, Mary, if you ain't the
most unmitigated sight!" And wind then left him.
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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: On Hoskens fully realizing the fact that his
victim was no more, he exclaimed "By thunder I
am a used-up man!" The sudden disappointment,
and the loss of two thousand dollars, was more
than he could endure: so he drank more than ever,
and in a short time died, raving mad with delirium
tremens.
The villain Slator said to Mrs. Huston, the kind
lady who endeavoured to purchase Antoinette from
Hoskens, "Nobody needn't talk to me 'bout
buying them ar likely niggers, for I'm not going to
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 Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: dispersed, for a god covered him;--and the recollection of this,
gaining precision by degrees, brought a crushing sadness upon him.
Shadows passed before his eyes; the town whirled round in his head,
his blood streamed from a wound in his hip, he felt that he was dying;
his hams bent, and he sank quite gently upon the pavement.
Some one went to the peristyle of the temple of Melkarth, took thence
the bar of a tripod, heated red hot in the coals, and, slipping it
beneath the first chain, pressed it against his wound. The flesh was
seen to smoke; the hootings of the people drowned his voice; he was
standing again.
Six paces further on, and he fell a third and again a fourth time; but
Salammbo |
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 $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: for there were some most pleasant ones not far away, and one very
handsome and courteous and graceful one, a curly-haired Irish
setter by the name of Robin Adair, who was a Presbyterian like me,
and belonged to the Scotch minister.
The servants in our house were all kind to me and were fond of me,
and so, as you see, mine was a pleasant life. There could not be
a happier dog that I was, nor a gratefuler one. I will say this
for myself, for it is only the truth: I tried in all ways to do
well and right, and honor my mother's memory and her teachings,
and earn the happiness that had come to me, as best I could.
By and by came my little puppy, and then my cup was full, my happiness
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