| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: "Course we will!" cried Bruno. "Come along, Sylvie!" And the happy
children raced away, bounding over the turf with the fleetness and
grace of young antelopes.
"Then you didn't find your way back to Outland?" I said to the Professor.
"Oh yes, I did!" he replied, "We never got to Queer Street; but I found
another way. I've been backwards and forwards several times since
then. I had to be present at the Election, you know, as the author of
the new Money-act. The Emperor was so kind as to wish that I should
have the credit of it. 'Let come what come may,' (I remember the very
words of the Imperial Speech) 'if it should turn out that the Warden is
alive, you will bear witness that the change in the coinage is the
Sylvie and Bruno |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: It was while living on this farm that Abraham and his sister
Sarah first began going to A-B-C schools. Their earliest teacher
was Zachariah Riney, who taught near the Lincoln cabin; the next
was Caleb Hazel, four miles away.
In spite of the tragedy that darkened his childhood, Thomas
Lincoln seems to have been a cheery, indolent, good-natured man.
By means of a little farming and occasional jobs at his trade, he
managed to supply his family with the absolutely necessary food
and shelter, but he never got on in the world. He found it much
easier to gossip with his friends, or to dream about rich new
lands in the West, than to make a thrifty living in the place
|
| 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: how a healthy, normal man holds the medical profession in half
contemptuous regard until he gets sick, or an emergency like this
arises, and then turns meekly to the man who knows the ins and outs
of his mortal tenement, takes his pills or his patronage, ties to
him like a rudderless. ship in a gale.
"Suicide, is it, doctor?" I asked.
He stood erect, after drawing the bed-clothing over the face, and,
taking off his glasses, he wiped them slowly.
"No, it is not suicide," he announced decisively. "It is murder."
Of course, I had expected that, but the word itself brought a shiver.
I was just a bit dizzy. Curious faces through the car were turned
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 Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: uttering. Rasselas endeavoured first to comfort and afterwards to
divert her; he hired musicians, to whom she seemed to listen, but
did not hear them; and procured masters to instruct her in various
arts, whose lectures, when they visited her again, were again to be
repeated. She had lost her taste of pleasure and her ambition of
excellence; and her mind, though forced into short excursions,
always recurred to the image of her friend.
Imlac was every morning earnestly enjoined to renew his inquiries,
and was asked every night whether he had yet heard of Pekuah; till,
not being able to return the Princess the answer that she desired,
he was less and less willing to come into her presence. She
|
