| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: by him to say that we aren't to worry about him. He said he
would--would--rope a heap of cows on the Lazy D yet."
Nora, bursting into tears, flung herself into Helen's arms. "They
are going to kill him. I know they are, and--and 'twas only
yesterday, ma'am, I told him not to--to get gay, the poor boy.
When he tried to--to--" She broke down and sobbed.
Her mistress smiled in spite of herself, though she was bitterly
aware that even Nora's grief was only superficially ludicrous.
"We're going to save him, Nora, if we can. There's hope while
there's life. You see, Mac himself is full of courage. HE hasn't
given up. We must keep up our courage, too."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: the flesh was so decayed and sunken that it literally fell off.
That job was the worst of all.
Time and again, after cutting away with the points of our
spears--our only tools--until we could stand it no longer, we
staggered off to the stream like drunken men, sick and faint with
the sight and smell of the mess.
But that, too, came to an end, and finally we marched off to
the camp, which we had removed a half-mile upstream, dragging after
us a piece of the hide about thirty feet long and half as wide. It
was not as heavy as we had thought, which made it all the better
for our purpose.
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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 What is Man? by Mark Twain: believed to be a call of duty.
Y.M. Call it what you please, it is to me a case of
AWAKENED CONSCIENCE. That awakened conscience could never get
itself into that species of trouble again. A cure like that is a
PERMANENT cure.
O.M. Pardon--I had not finished the story. We are
creatures of OUTSIDE INFLUENCES--we originate NOTHING within.
Whenever we take a new line of thought and drift into a new line
of belief and action, the impulse is ALWAYS suggested from the
OUTSIDE. Remorse so preyed upon the Infidel that it dissolved
his harshness toward the boy's religion and made him come to
What is Man? |
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 From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: ornaments, or that William of Wickham had been a Quaker, or at
least a Quietist. There is neither statue, nor a niche for a
statue, to be seen on all the outside; no carved work, no spires,
towers, pinnacles, balustrades, or anything; but mere walls,
buttresses, windows, and coigns necessary to the support and order
of the building. It has no steeple, but a short tower covered
flat, as if the top of it had fallen down, and it had been covered
in haste to keep the rain out till they had time to build it up
again.
But the inside of the church has many very good things in it, and
worth observation; it was for some ages the burying-place of the
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