| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: with West Fork you'd be no good."
"Glenn, I love people, not places," she returned.
"So I remember. And that's one thing I don't like. But let's not quarrel.
What'll we do?"
"Suppose you tramp with me all around, until I'm good and hungry. Then
we'll come back here--and you can cook dinner for me."
"Fine! Oh, I know you're just bursting with curiosity to see how I'll do
it. Well, you may be surprised, miss."
"Let's go," she urged.
"Shall I take my gun or fishing rod?"
"You shall take nothing but me," retorted Carley. "What chance has a girl
The Call of the Canyon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement,
is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle,
anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.
I do not forget the position, assumed by some, that Constitutional
questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny
that such decisions must be binding, in any case, upon the parties
to a suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled
to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other
departments of the government. And while it is obviously possible that
such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect
following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: "He kept you, sir, just under three hours. I don't think this
ever happened with any of the gentlemen before."
It was only when I got out of the building that I began to walk
on air. And the human animal being averse from change and timid
before the unknown, I said to myself that I really would not mind
being examined by the same man on a future occasion. But when
the time of ordeal came round again the doorkeeper let me into
another room, with the now familiar paraphernalia of models of
ships and tackle, a board for signals on the wall, a big, long
table covered with official forms and having an unrigged mast
fixed to the edge. The solitary tenant was unknown to me by
A Personal Record |
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 Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: Though he wished to go far away, he was held, as it were, outside the
house for some moments, watching the light which shone from all the
windows of the Swedish dwelling.
"What is the matter with me?" he asked himself. "No, she is not a mere
creature, but a whole creation. Of her world, even through veils and
clouds, I have caught echoes like the memory of sufferings healed,
like the dazzling vertigo of dreams in which we hear the plaints of
generations mingling with the harmonies of some higher sphere where
all is Light and all is Love. Am I awake? Do I still sleep? Are these
the eyes before which the luminous space retreated further and further
indefinitely while the eyes followed it? The night is cold, yet my
Seraphita |
