| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: "You seem to forget," replied Rasselas, "that you have, even now
represented celibacy as less happy than marriage. Both conditions
may be bad, but they cannot both be worse. Thus it happens, when
wrong opinions are entertained, that they mutually destroy each
other and leave the mind open to truth."
"I did not expect," answered, the Princess, "to hear that imputed
to falsehood which is the consequence only of frailty. To the
mind, as to the eye, it is difficult to compare with exactness
objects vast in their extent and various in their parts. When we
see or conceive the whole at once, we readily note the
discriminations and decide the preference, but of two systems, of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Call of the Wild by Jack London: innocuously, and Charles's eyes wistfully watering, they staggered
into John Thornton's camp at the mouth of White River. When they
halted, the dogs dropped down as though they had all been struck
dead. Mercedes dried her eyes and looked at John Thornton.
Charles sat down on a log to rest. He sat down very slowly and
painstakingly what of his great stiffness. Hal did the talking.
John Thornton was whittling the last touches on an axe-handle he
had made from a stick of birch. He whittled and listened, gave
monosyllabic replies, and, when it was asked, terse advice.
He knew the breed, and he gave his advice in the certainty that it
would not be followed.
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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 A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: life. "No, no! not so fast," warned Felicite. Still they hurried on,
for they could hear the noisy breathing of the bull behind them. His
hoofs pounded the grass like hammers, and presently he began to
gallop! Felicite turned around and threw patches of grass in his eyes.
He hung his head, shook his horns and bellowed with fury. Madame
Aubain and the children, huddled at the end of the field, were trying
to jump over the ditch. Felicite continued to back before the bull,
blinding him with dirt, while she shouted to them to make haste.
Madame Aubain finally slid into the ditch, after shoving first
Virginia and then Paul into it, and though she stumbled several times
she managed, by dint of courage, to climb the other side of it.
A Simple Soul |
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 Oakdale Affair by Edgar Rice Burroughs: thought forced its way into his mind another obtruded
itself to shoulder aside the first. It was recollection of the
boy's words: "Oh, Bridge, I don't want to leave you--
ever."
"I couldn't do it," mused Bridge. "I don't know just
why; but I couldn't. That kid has certainly got me. The
first thing someone knows I'll be starting a foundlings'
home. There is no question but that I am the soft
mark, and I wonder why it is--why a kid I never saw
before last night has a strangle hold on my heart that I
can't shake loose--and don't want to. Now if it was a
The Oakdale Affair |
