| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces,
Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child.
And ended somewhat thus -
Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland,
Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold.
Lone let it stand, now the folks are all departed,
The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old.
I could never be a judge of the merit of these verses; they were so
hallowed by the melancholy of the air, and were sung (or rather
"soothed") to me by a master-singer at a time so fitting. He
looked in my face when he had done, and saw that my eyes watered.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: with an exclamation of profound disgust. "I thought we were
the first to prospect along in here, an' now look at that.
Don't it make you sick?"
He pointed out evidences of an abandoned prospector's camp
just before them--charred ashes, empty tin cans, one or two
gold-miner's pans, and a broken pick. "Don't that make you
sick?" muttered Cribbens, sucking his mustache furiously.
"To think of us mushheads going over ground that's been
covered already! Say, pardner, we'll dig out of here to-
morrow. I've been thinking, anyhow, we'd better move to the
south; that water of ours is pretty low."
McTeague |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: Tell me, can it be that I have spoiled my picture?"
Porbus hesitated, and feared to speak; but the anxiety painted on the
white face of the old man was so cruel that he was constrained to
point to the canvas and utter the word, "See!"
Frenhofer looked at his picture for a space of a moment, and
staggered.
"Nothing! nothing! after toiling ten years!"
He sat down and wept.
"Am I then a fool, an idiot? Have I neither talent nor capacity? Am I
no better than a rich man who walks, and can only walk? Have I indeed
produced nothing?"
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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 Mayflower Compact: King, Defender of the Faith, &c.
Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of
the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country,
a Voyage to plant the first colony in the Northerne Parts
of Virginia; doe, by these Presents, solemnly and mutually
in the Presence of God and one of another, covenant and
combine ourselves together into a civill Body Politick,
for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance
of the Ends aforesaid; And by Virtue hereof do enact,
constitute, and frame, such just and equall Laws, Ordinances,
Acts, Constitutions, and Offices, from time to time,
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