| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: schoolmaster up, and lay him on a shelf of his own schoolhouse;"
and he was too wary to give him an opportunity. There was
something extremely provoking, in this obstinately pacific
system; it left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of
rustic waggery in his disposition, and to play off boorish
practical jokes upon his rival. Ichabod became the object of
whimsical persecution to Bones and his gang of rough riders. They
harried his hitherto peaceful domains, smoked out his singing-
school by stopping up the chimney, broke into the schoolhouse at
night, in spite of its formidable fastenings of withe and window
stakes, and turned everything topsy-turvy, so that the poor
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: incomprehensible infection she herself had replied in the same
vein. He had assumed that her leaving home was the point at
issue, that everything turned on that, and that the sole
alternative was obedience, and she had fallen in with that
assumption until rebellion seemed a sacred principle. Moreover,
atrociously and inexorably, he allowed it to appear ever and
again in horrible gleams that he suspected there was some man in
the case. . . . Some man!
And to conclude it all was the figure of her father in the
doorway, giving her a last chance, his hat in one hand, his
umbrella in the other, shaken at her to emphasize his point.
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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 Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: to their future behaviour to calm her, and now they had again
disobeyed her. It would be a great relief when to-night's ordeal
was over.
Jim watched Polly uneasily as she came from the dressing tent and
stopped to gaze at the nearby church steeple. The incongruity of
the slang, that soon came from her delicately formed lips, was
lost upon him as she turned her eyes toward him.
"Say, Jim," she said, with a Western drawl, "them's a funny lot
of guys what goes to them church places, ain't they?"
"Most everybody has got some kind of a bug," Jim assented; "I
guess they don't do much harm."
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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 Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: up them meadows. They've been a-sayin' that since '74; and I've been
a-sayin' it myself, when judicious." Here he shook slightly and opened
the basket. "Twelve," he said. "Sixteen yesterday. Now you go along
and turn in the first right-hand turn, and I'll be up with you soon.
Maybe you might make room for the trout." Room for him as well, they
assured him; they were in luck to find him, they explained. "Well, I
guess I'll trust my neck with you," he said to Bertie, the skillful
driver; "'tain't five minutes' risk." The buggy leaned, and its springs
bent as he climbed in, wedging his mature bulk between their slim
shapes. The gelding looked round the shaft at them. "Protestin', are
you?" he said to it. "These light-weight stoodents spile you!" So the
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