| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: be that such happiness can be true after all the hideous
things that I have passed through these awful months since
the LADY ALICE went down."
She came close to him and laid a hand, soft and trembling,
upon his arm.
"It must be that I am dreaming, and that I shall awaken
in a moment to see that awful knife descending toward my
heart--kiss me, dear, just once before I lose my dream forever."
Tarzan of the Apes needed no second invitation. He took
the girl he loved in his strong arms, and kissed her not once,
but a hundred times, until she lay there panting for breath;
The Return of Tarzan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: yard. In the summer of 1828, it was Madame's turn to offer the
hallowed bread; at that time, Bourais disappeared mysteriously; and
the old acquaintances, Guyot, Liebard, Madame Lechaptois, Robelin, old
Gremanville, paralysed since a long time, passed away one by one. One
night, the driver of the mail in Pont-l'Eveque announced the
Revolution of July. A few days afterward a new sub-prefect was
nominated, the Baron de Larsonniere, ex-consul in America, who,
besides his wife, had his sister-in-law and her three grown daughters
with him. They were often seen on their lawn, dressed in loose
blouses, and they had a parrot and a negro servant. Madame Aubain
received a call, which she returned promptly. As soon as she caught
A Simple Soul |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: controversy as to HOW it shall be kept?
Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of
liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced,
so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave?
And might it not be well at the same time to provide by law for the
enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that
"the citizen of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and
immunities of citizens in the several States?"
I take the official oath today with no mental reservations,
and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by
any hypercritical rules. And while I do not choose now to specify
|
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 Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: strongly, and these were passing out with it on the other side of
the mouth of the bayou;--perhaps they had been washed into the
marsh during the night, when the great rush of the sea came.
Then the three men left the water, and retired to higher ground
to scan the furrowed Gulf;--their practiced eyes began to search
the courses of the sea-currents,--keen as the gaze of birds that
watch the wake of the plough. And soon the casks and the drift
were forgotten; for it seemed to them that the tide was heavy
with human dead--passing out, processionally, to the great open.
Very far, where the huge pitching of the swells was diminished by
distance into a mere fluttering of ripples, the water appeared as
|
