| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Foolish Virgin by Thomas Dixon: "I'll think it over and let you know."
"Got a telephone?"
"No."
"Then you'll have to tell me before I go--won't
you?"
"I suppose so," she answered demurely.
They passed the big fountain beyond the Mall and
skirted the lake to the bridge, crossed, walked along
the water's edge to the laurel-covered crags and found
a seat alone in the summer house that hides among the
trees on its highest point.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Travels and Researches in South Africa by Dr. David Livingstone: formerly alight@mercury.interpath.net). To assure a high quality text,
the original was typed in (manually) twice and electronically compared.
[Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are CAPITALIZED.
Some obvious errors have been corrected.]
Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa.
Also called, Travels and Researches in South Africa;
or, Journeys and Researches in South Africa.
By David Livingstone [British (Scot) Missionary and Explorer--1813-1873.]
David Livingstone was born in Scotland, received his medical degree
from the University of Glasgow, and was sent to South Africa
by the London Missionary Society. Circumstances led him to try to meet
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: In old Colonel Pyncheon's funeral discourse the clergyman absolutely
canonized his deceased parishioner, and opening, as it were, a vista
through the roof of the church, and thence through the firmament
above, showed him seated, harp in hand, among the crowned choristers
of the spiritual world. On his tombstone, too, the record is highly
eulogistic; nor does history, so far as he holds a place upon its page,
assail the consistency and uprightness of his character. So also,
as regards the Judge Pyncheon of to-day, neither clergyman, nor legal
critic, nor inscriber of tombstones, nor historian of general or local
politics, would venture a word against this eminent person's sincerity
as a Christian, or respectability as a man, or integrity as a judge,
House of Seven Gables |
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 La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: furniture, wrapped the dead in her winding-sheet, and laid her upon
the couch. They lit tapers about her, and arranged everything--the
crucifix, the sprigs of box, and the holy-water stoup--after the
custom of the countryside, bolting the shutters and drawing the
curtains. Later the curate came to pass the night in prayer with
Louis, who refused to leave his mother. On Tuesday morning an old
woman and two children and a vinedresser's wife followed the dead to
her grave. These were the only mourners. Yet this was a woman whose
wit and beauty and charm had won a European reputation, a woman whose
funeral, if it had taken place in London, would have been recorded in
pompous newspaper paragraphs, as a sort of aristocratic rite, if she
|
