| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: of my separation from Isabel, could find no resistance to his
emphatic suggestion. It seemed to me that what he had said was
overpoweringly true, not only of contemporary life, but of all
possible human life. Love is the rare thing, the treasured thing;
you lock it away jealously and watch, and well you may; hate and
aggression and force keep the streets and rule the world. And fine
thinking is, in the rough issues of life, weak thinking, is a
balancing indecisive process, discovers with disloyal impartiality a
justice and a defect on each disputing side. "Good honest men," as
Dayton calls them, rule the world, with a way of thinking out
decisions like shooting cartloads of bricks, and with a steadfast
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Aeneid by Virgil: But, while he lags, and labors in his flight,
Behold, the dastard fowl return anew,
And with united force the foe pursue:
Clam'rous around the royal hawk they fly,
And, thick'ning in a cloud, o'ershade the sky.
They cuff, they scratch, they cross his airy course;
Nor can th' incumber'd bird sustain their force;
But vex'd, not vanquish'd, drops the pond'rous prey,
And, lighten'd of his burthen, wings his way.
Th' Ausonian bands with shouts salute the sight,
Eager of action, and demand the fight.
Aeneid |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: "Do you want to learn?"
"I'd like to if I had a chance," he answered wistfully.
"All right. You have your chance. I'll see that Mr. Austin finds
something for you to do. From to-day you are in my employ."
She rode back to the ranch in the late afternoon, while the sun
was setting in a great splash of crimson. The round-up boss had
hinted that if she were nervous about riding alone he could find
it convenient to accompany her. But the girl wanted to be alone
with her own thoughts, and she had slipped away while he was busy
cutting out calves from the herd. It had been a wonderful relief
to her to find that HER Ned Bannister was the one that had
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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 The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: "Keep her full. Don't check her way. That won't do now,"
I said warningly.
"I can't see the sails very well," the helmsman answered me,
in strange, quavering tones.
Was she close enough? Already she was, I won't say in the shadow of the land,
but in the very blackness of it, already swallowed up as it were, gone too
close to be recalled, gone from me altogether.
"Give the mate a call," I said to the young man who stood at my elbow
as still as death. "And turn all hands up."
My tone had a borrowed loudness reverberated from the height of the land.
Several voices cried out together: "We are all on deck, sir."
The Secret Sharer |
