| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Slowly, from the ashes, Kwasind
Rose, but made no angry answer;
From the lodge went forth in silence,
Took the nets, that hung together,
Dripping, freezing at the doorway;
Like a wisp of straw he wrung them,
Like a wisp of straw he broke them,
Could not wring them without breaking,
Such the strength was in his fingers.
"Lazy Kwasind!" said his father,
"In the hunt you never help me;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: You scarce have altered: I am sad and glad
To see you, Florian. ~I~ give thee to death
My brother! it was duty spoke, not I.
My needful seeming harshness, pardon it.
Our mother, is she well?'
With that she kissed
His forehead, then, a moment after, clung
About him, and betwixt them blossomed up
From out a common vein of memory
Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth,
And far allusion, till the gracious dews
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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 Charmides by Plato: of the human body, that physicians separate the soul from the body.' And
he added with emphasis, at the same time making me swear to his words, 'Let
no one, however rich, or noble, or fair, persuade you to give him the cure,
without the charm.' Now I have sworn, and I must keep my oath, and
therefore if you will allow me to apply the Thracian charm first to your
soul, as the stranger directed, I will afterwards proceed to apply the cure
to your head. But if not, I do not know what I am to do with you, my dear
Charmides.
Critias, when he heard this, said: The headache will be an unexpected gain
to my young relation, if the pain in his head compels him to improve his
mind: and I can tell you, Socrates, that Charmides is not only pre-eminent
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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 Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: overalls carrying an amount of inebriety and a lantern. I am so sure
that this is Major Tucker that I don't even ask him until we are up
above; and then I discover that it is Uncle Timothy, the yard
switchman at Edenville, who is sent ahead to flag our understandings
with the gossip that Judge Pendergast, the railroad's attorney, is in
the process of mortgaging Colonel Rockingham's farming lands to make
up the ransom.
While he is talking, two men crawl from under the bushes into camp,
and Caligula, with no white flag to disinter him from his plain duty,
draws his gun. But again Colonel Rockingham intervenes and introduces
Mr. Jones and Mr. Batts, engineer and fireman of train number forty-
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