| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: flung him down at the king's feet.
When the poor beggar gathered wits enough to look about him he
saw there a great chest standing wide open, and with holes in the
lid. He wondered what it was for, but the king gave him no chance
to ask; for, beckoning with his hand, the hangman and the others
caught the beggar by arms and legs, thrust him into the chest,
and banged down the lid upon him.
The king locked it and double-locked it, and set his seal upon
it; and there was the beggar as tight as a fly in a bottle.
They carried the chest out and thrust it into a cart and hauled
it away, until at last they came to the sea-shore. There they
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey: He had never known youth; his manhood had been one pitiless warfare against
his sworn foes; but once in all those years had his sore, cold heart warmed;
and that was toward a woman who was not for him. His life had held only one
purpose--a bloody one. Yet the man had a heart, and he could not prevent it
from responding to another. In his simple ignorance he rebelled against this
affection for anything other than his forest homes. Man is weak against hate;
what can he avail against love? The dark caverns of Wetzel's great heart
opened, admitting to their gloomy depths this stranger. So now a new love was
born in that cheerless heart, where for so long a lonely inmate, the ghost of
old love, had dwelt in chill seclusion.
The feeling of comradeship which Wetzel had for Joe was something altogether
The Spirit of the Border |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: "A poet!" repeated the young Shaker, a little puzzled how to
understand such a designation, seldom heard in the utilitarian
community where he had spent his life. "Oh, ay, Miriam, he means
a varse-maker, thee must know."
This remark jarred upon the susceptible nerves of the poet; nor
could he help wondering what strange fatality had put into this
young man's mouth an epithet, which ill-natured people had
affirmed to be more proper to his merit than the one assumed by
himself.
"True, I am a verse-maker," he resumed, "but my verse is no more
than the material body into which I breathe the celestial soul of
The Snow Image |
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 Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: sumptuous time of autumn. Such heaped up platters of cakes of
various and almost indescribable kinds, known only to experienced
Dutch housewives! There was the doughty doughnut, the tender
olykoek, and the crisp and crumbling cruller; sweet cakes and
short cakes, ginger cakes and honey cakes, and the whole family
of cakes. And then there were apple pies, and peach pies, and
pumpkin pies; besides slices of ham and smoked beef; and moreover
delectable dishes of preserved plums, and peaches, and pears, and
quinces; not to mention broiled shad and roasted chickens;
together with bowls of milk and cream, all mingled higgledy-
pigglely, pretty much as I have enumerated them, with the
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
