| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: original secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern
cause. Circumstances of an imperious nature, which it is
unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking
service with that gallant army which had fought the
disastrous campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth, and he
chafed under the inglorious restraint, longing for the
release of his energies, the larger life of the soldier, the
opportunity for distinction. That opportunity, he felt,
would come, as it comes to all in wartime. Meanwhile he
did what he could. No service was too humble for him to
perform in the aid of the South, no adventure to perilous for
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Heap O' Livin' by Edgar A. Guest: Everything for which I pleaded,
Somehow, father always got.
Wondered, season after season,
Why he never took a rest,
And that _I_ might be the reason
Then I never even guessed.
Father set a store on knowledge;
If he'd lived to have his way
He'd have sent me off to college
And the bills been glad to pay.
That, I know, was his ambition:
A Heap O' Livin' |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: play, "was a man of more pretence than real cultivation, as I
afterwards discovered. He was in good circumstances, and always
glad to receive us at his house, as this made him, virtually, the
chief of our tribe, and the outlay for refreshments involved only
the apples from his own orchard and water from his well. There was
an entire absence of conventionality at our meetings, and this,
conpared with the somewhat stiff society of the village, was
really an attraction. There was a mystic bond of union in our
ideas: we discussed life, love, religion, and the future state, not
only with the utmost candor, but with a warmth of feeling which, in
many of us, was genuine. Even I (and you know how painfully shy
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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 Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: did not make the old man's heart any lighter, for the purse mended
with yellow thread was too clearly the one stolen from the murdered
man found in the quiet street in Hietzing.
"What's the matter with you, you're so slow? I can get along
better myself," growled the tramp, pushing the old man away from
him. Goldstamm had really begun to tremble now in spite of his
control, in the fear that the man would get away from him before the
police came.
The tramp was already dressed in the new suit, into a pocket of
which he put the old purse.
"There, now the boots and then we're finished," said the dealer
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