| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey: darkness. He held out his hand. Duane met it with his in a
clasp that men unconsciously give in moments of stress.
When they unclasped and Duane stepped back to drop into a chair
MacNelly fumbled for another cigar--he had bitten the other
into shreds--and, lighting it as before, he turned to his
visitor, now calm and cool. He had the look of a man who had
justly won something at considerable cost. His next move was to
take a long leather case from his pocket and extract from it
several folded papers.
"Here's your pardon from the Governor," he said, quietly.
"You'll see, when you look it over, that it's conditional. When
The Lone Star Ranger |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: companion remained in. "Come, ma petite blonde, I'll let you go to bed
first," he said to her, counting on the activity of his own legs to
run away as quickly as possible, directly she was asleep, and seek
another shelter for the night.
The soldier waited with impatience the hour of his flight, and when it
had arrived he walked vigorously in the direction of the Nile; but
hardly had he made a quarter of a league in the sand when he heard the
panther bounding after him, crying with that saw-like cry more
dreadful even than the sound of her leaping.
"Ah!" he said, "then she's taken a fancy to me, she has never met
anyone before, and it is really quite flattering to have her first
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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 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: with which he repeated over that "the child was quite well"--that
there wasn't anything in that cough,--it was only some little
stomach affection, such as children often had. But he kept by her
more than before, took her oftener to ride with him, brought home
every few days some receipt or strengthening mixture,--"not," he
said, "that the child _needed_ it, but then it would not do her
any harm."
If it must be told, the thing that struck a deeper pang to his
heart than anything else was the daily increasing maturity of
the child's mind and feelings. While still retaining all a child's
fanciful graces, yet she often dropped, unconsciously, words of
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
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 Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: All of a sudden the whole region fairly rocked under the crash of
eleven hundred and one thunder blasts, all let off at once, and
Sandy says, -
"There, that's for the barkeep."
I jumped up and says, -
"Then let's be moving along, Sandy; we don't want to miss any of
this thing, you know."
"Keep your seat," he says; "he is only just telegraphed, that is
all."
"How?"
"That blast only means that he has been sighted from the signal-
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