| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: with them.
SUNDAY.--She doesn't work, Sundays, but lies around all tired out,
and likes to have the fish wallow over her; and she makes fool
noises to amuse it, and pretends to chew its paws, and that makes
it laugh. I have not seen a fish before that could laugh.
This makes me doubt. . . . I have come to like Sunday myself.
Superintending all the week tires a body so. There ought to be
more Sundays. In the old days they were tough, but now they
come handy.
WEDNESDAY.--It isn't a fish. I cannot quite make out what it is.
It makes curious devilish noises when not satisfied, and says "goo-goo"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: thing.
Next Day
I have been comparing the new one with the old one, and it is
perfectly plain that they are the same breed. I was going to stuff
one of them for my collection, but she is prejudiced against it
for some reason or other; so I have relinquished the idea, though
I think it is a mistake. It would be an irreparable loss to science
if they should get away. The old one is tamer than it was, and
can laugh and talk like the parrot, having learned this, no doubt,
from being with the parrot so much, and having the imitative faculty
in a highly developed degree. I shall be astonished if it turns
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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 Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: strange fear of man, that rules even the most powerful
of the jungle creatures at times.
To remove Mugambi's loin cloth without awakening him
would be impossible, and the only detachable things
were the knob-stick and the pouch, which had fallen
from the black's shoulder as he rolled in sleep.
Seizing these two articles, as better than nothing at
all, Chulk retreated with haste, and every indication
of nervous terror, to the safety of the tree from which
he had dropped, and, still haunted by that indefinable
terror which the close proximity of man awakened in his
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar |
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 Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: Give me the sun that shone!
Give me the eyes, give me the soul,
Give me the lad that's gone!
Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry of soul he sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.
Billow and breeze, islands and seas,
Mountains of rain and sun,
All that was good, all that was fair,
All that was me is gone.
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