| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: suddenly back.
She sat down, waiting until it was time to go; quietly taking the
dull picture into her slow, unrevealing eyes; a sluggish,
hackneyed weariness creeping into her brain; a curious feeling,
that all her life before had been a silly dream, and this dust,
these desks and ledgers, were real,--all that was real. It was
her birthday; she was twenty. As she happened to remember that,
another fancy floated up before her, oddly life-like: of the old
seat she made under the currant-bushes at home when she was a
child, and the plans she laid for herself, when she should be a
woman, sitting there,--how she would dig down into the middle of
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Let us gather in the harvest,
Let us wrestle with Mondamin,
Strip him of his plumes and tassels,
Of his garments green and yellow!"
And the merry Laughing Water
Went rejoicing from the wigwam,
With Nokomis, old and wrinkled,
And they called the women round them,
Called the young men and the maidens,
To the harvest of the cornfields,
To the husking of the maize-ear.
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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 Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: prove. In the arrangement of his "running heads," some points
were sufficiently curious to require a word of explanation, as,
for example, when the early ages of Christianity were at one time
labelled as an epoch of progress and at another time as an epoch
of decrepitude. But the argument and the contents never got so
far en rapport with each other as to clear up such points as
this. On the contrary, each kept on the even tenour of its way
without much regard to the other. From the titles of the chapters
one was led to expect some comprehensive theory of European
civilization continuously expounded. But the text merely showed a
great quantity of superficial and second-hand information,
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
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 Research Magnificent by H. G. Wells: leather bindings that it had amused her extremely to buy; it had a
splendid bureau and business-like letter-filing cabinets, a neat
little drawing-room and a dining-room, well-placed abundant electric
lights, and a man called Merkle whom she had selected very carefully
and who she felt would not only see to Benham's comfort but keep
him, if necessary, up to the mark.
This man Merkle seemed quite unaware that humanity "here and now"--
even as he was engaged in meticulously putting out Benham's clothes--
was ‘‘leaving its ancestral shelters and going out upon the
greatest adventure that ever was in space or time." If he had been
told as much by Benham he would probably have said, "Indeed, sir,"
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