| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: both honest and brave.
"I've reasons--only one of which I need mention," she answered.
"If it's possible I want to change you toward my people. And on
the moment I can conceive of little I wouldn't do to gain that
end."
How much better and freer Jane felt after that confession! She
meant to show him that there was one Mormon who could play a game
or wage a fight in the open.
"I reckon," said Lassiter, and he laughed.
It was the best in her, if the most irritating, that Lassiter
always aroused.
Riders of the Purple Sage |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: shriek we heard on the night we tried our first experiment in
the deserted farmhouse at Arkham.
Very little time had elapsed
before I saw the attempt was not to be a total failure. A touch
of colour came to cheeks hitherto chalk-white, and spread out
under the curiously ample stubble of sandy beard. West, who had
his hand on the pulse of the left wrist, suddenly nodded significantly;
and almost simultaneously a mist appeared on the mirror inclined
above the body’s mouth. There followed a few spasmodic muscular
motions, and then an audible breathing and visible motion of the
chest. I looked at the closed eyelids, and thought I detected
Herbert West: Reanimator |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: that would have happened would have been the wonder at the utter
disappearance of a glass tumbler, a ridiculous riddle in pantry-
affairs beyond the wit of anyone on board to solve. The grain of
sand against which Powell stumbled in his headlong career was a
moment of incredulity as to the truth of his own conviction because
it had failed to affect the safe aspect of familiar things. He
doubted his eyes too. He must have dreamt it all! "I am dreaming
now," he said to himself. And very likely for a few seconds he must
have looked like a man in a trance or profoundly asleep on his feet,
and with a glass of brandy-and-water in his hand.
What woke him up and, at the same time, fixed his feet immovably to
Chance |
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 A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: me, too; took the colonels, the captains, the women, the children,
and the dumb brutes; took Buffalo Bill, and all his scouts; took
the garrison - to the last man; and in forty-eight hours the Indian
encampment was hers, illustrious old Thunder-Bird and all. Do I
seem to have lost my solemnity, my gravity, my poise, my dignity?
You would lose your own, in my circumstances. Mother, you never
saw such a winning little devil. She is all energy, and spirit,
and sunshine, and interest in everybody and everything, and pours
out her prodigal love upon every creature that will take it, high
or low, Christian or pagan, feathered or furred; and none has
declined it to date, and none ever will, I think. But she has a
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