| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather: Blinking up at the lights, Mainhall added
in his luxurious, worldly way: "She's an elegant
little person, and quite capable of an extravagant
bit of sentiment like that. Here comes
Sir Harry Towne. He's another who's
awfully keen about her. Let me introduce you.
Sir Harry Towne, Mr. Bartley Alexander,
the American engineer."
Sir Harry Towne bowed and said that he had
met Mr. Alexander and his wife in Tokyo.
Mainhall cut in impatiently.
Alexander's Bridge |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: Every year some would die and others become incapacitated by age
and infirmity; there would be no new ones to take their places.
In time, the association could put wages up to any figure it chose;
and as long as it should be wise enough not to carry the thing
too far and provoke the national government into amending
the licensing system, steamboat owners would have to submit,
since there would be no help for it.
The owners and captains were the only obstruction that lay between
the association and absolute power; and at last this one was removed.
Incredible as it may seem, the owners and captains deliberately
did it themselves. When the pilots' association announced,
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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 Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: the rest of the girls in this cold dry time; the tears
running down her cheeks all the while at the thought
that perhaps he would not, after all, come to hear her,
and the simple silly words of the songs resounding in
painful mockery of the aching heart of the singer.
Tess was so wrapt up in this fanciful dream that she
seemed not to know how the season was advancing; that
the days had lengthened, that Lady-Day was at hand, and
would soon be followed by Old Lady-Day, the end of her
term here.
But before the quarter-day had quite come something
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
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 Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: By my rambling digressions I perceive myself to be grown old.
I us'd to write more methodically. But one does not dress for private
company as for a publick ball. 'Tis perhaps only negligence.
To return: I continued thus employed in my father's business for
two years, that is, till I was twelve years old; and my brother John,
who was bred to that business, having left my father, married, and set
up for himself at Rhode Island, there was all appearance that I
was destined to supply his place, and become a tallow-chandler.
But my dislike to the trade continuing, my father was under
apprehensions that if he did not find one for me more agreeable,
I should break away and get to sea, as his son Josiah had done,
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
