| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: Zillerthal; and, nearer, the Geislerspitze, like five fingers
thrust into the air; behind that, the distant Oetzthaler Mountain,
and just a single white glimpse of the highest peak of the Ortler
by the Engadine; nearer still we saw the vast fortress of the Sella
group and the red combs of the Rosengarten; Monte Marmolata, the
Queen of the Dolomites, stood before us revealed from base to peak
in a bridal dress of snow; and southward we looked into the dark
rugged face of La Civetta, rising sheer out of the vale of Agordo,
where the Lake of Alleghe slept unseen. It was a sea of mountains,
tossed around us into a myriad of motionless waves, and with a
rainbow of colours spread among their hollows and across their
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: dollars. Sea-otter at twelve dollars, worth from forty-five to
sixty dollars; and for several kinds of furs nothing was allowed.
Moreover, the goods and merchandise for the Indian trade ought to
have brought three times the amount for which they were sold.
The following estimate has been made of the articles on hand, and
the prices:
17,705 lbs. beaver parchment, valued at $2.00 worth $5.00
465 old coat beaver, valued at 1.66 worth 3.50
907 land otter, valued at .50 worth 5.00
68 sea-otter, valued at 12.00 worth 45 to 60.00
30 sea-otter, valued at 5.00 worth 25.00
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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 The Reef by Edith Wharton: invitations, and straightening out accounts, and copying
visiting lists, and finishing golf-stockings, and matching
ribbons, and seeing that the dogs get their sulphur? One
looks in one's glass, after all!"
She launched the closing words at him on a cry that lifted
them above the petulance of vanity; but his sense of her
words was lost in the surprise of her face. Under the
flying clouds of her excitement it was no longer a shallow
flower-cup but a darkening gleaming mirror that might give
back strange depths of feeling. The girl had stuff in her--
he saw it; and she seemed to catch the perception in his
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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 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: according to my sentence was near at hand; my governess, who
continued my fast friend, had tried to obtain a pardon, but it
could not be done unless with an expense too heavy for my
purse, considering that to be left naked and empty, unless I had
resolved to return to my old trade again, had been worse than
my transportation, because there I knew I could live, here I
could not. The good minister stood very hard on another
account to prevent my being transported also; but he was
answered, that indeed my life had been given me at his first
solicitations, and therefore he ought to ask no more. He was
sensibly grieved at my going, because, as he said, he feared I
Moll Flanders |
