| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: reached down out of the misty past and moulded and made her to be a doer of
things.
But she was a little angry, and a great deal hurt. "I can guess what you would
tell me," the editor had kindly but firmly interrupted her lengthy preamble in
the long-looked-forward-to interview just ended. "And you have told me
enough," he had gone on (heartlessly, she was sure, as she went over the
conversation in its freshness). "You have done no newspaper work. You are
undrilled, undisciplined, unhammered into shape. You have received a
high-school education, and possibly topped it off with normal school or
college. You have stood well in English. Your friends have all told you how
cleverly you write, and how beautifully, and so forth and so forth. You think
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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 Monster Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs: On the girl's lips was an avowal of her own love,
but as she bent closer to whisper the words in his ear
there came the sound of men crashing through the jungle,
and as she turned to face the peril that she thought approaching,
von Horn sprang into view, while directly behind him came
her father and Sing Lee.
Bulan saw them at the same instant, and as Virginia ran
forward to greet her father he staggered weakly to his feet.
Von Horn was the first to see the young giant, and with an oath
sprang toward him, drawing his revolver as he came.
"You beast," he cried. "We have caught you at last."
The Monster Men |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: when they are not incurred nor protracted by our
fault, and neither approach us with cowardice nor
guilt.
But this felicity is almost always abated by the
reflection that they with whom we should be most
pleased to share it are now in the grave. A few years
make such havock in human generations, that we
soon see ourselves deprived of those with whom we
entered the world, and whom the participation of
pleasures or fatigues had endeared to our remembrance.
The man of enterprise recounts his adventures
|
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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: it; for, till the last year of my being on this island, I never
knew whether any were saved out of that ship or no; and had only
the affliction, some days after, to see the corpse of a drowned boy
come on shore at the end of the island which was next the
shipwreck. He had no clothes on but a seaman's waistcoat, a pair
of open-kneed linen drawers, and a blue linen shirt; but nothing to
direct me so much as to guess what nation he was of. He had
nothing in his pockets but two pieces of eight and a tobacco pipe -
the last was to me of ten times more value than the first.
It was now calm, and I had a great mind to venture out in my boat
to this wreck, not doubting but I might find something on board
Robinson Crusoe |
