| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare: So should my papers, yellow'd with their age,
Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage
And stretched metre of an antique song:
But were some child of yours alive that time,
You should live twice,--in it, and in my rhyme.
XVIII
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
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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 Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: of quite an altered kind, upon what seemed in every way
a fresh existence. He lacked even the impulse to turn
round and inspect the cocoon from which he had emerged.
Let the past bury the past. He had no vestige of interest
in it.
The change was not premature. He found himself not in
the least confused by it, or frightened. Before he had
finished shaving, he knew himself to be easily and comfortably
at home in his new state, and master of all its requirements.
It seemed as if Alice, too, recognized that he had become
another man, when he went down and took his chair at the
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: I've been doing his dirty work ever since."
Sullivan got up then and walked slowly forward and back as he
talked, his eyes on the faded pattern of the office rug.
"If you want to live in hell," he said savagely, "put yourself in
another man's power. Bronson got into trouble, forging John
Gilmore's name to those notes, and in some way he learned that a
man was bringing the papers back to Washington on the Flier. He
even learned the number of his berth, and the night before the
wreck, just as I was boarding the train, I got a telegram."
Hotchkiss stepped forward once more importantly. "Which read, I
think: 'Man with papers in lower ten, car seven. Get them.'"
The Man in Lower Ten |
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 Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "Who, me?" exclaimed the creature in a shrill, high-
pitched voice. "Why, I'm an Ork."
"Oh!" said the girl. "But what is an Ork?"
"I am," he repeated, a little proudly, as he shook
the water from his funny wings; "and if ever an Ork was
glad to be out of the water and on dry land again, you
can be mighty sure that I'm that especial, individual
Ork!"
"Have you been in the water long?" inquired Cap'n
Bill, thinking it only polite to show an interest in
the strange creature.
The Scarecrow of Oz |
