| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle: honored us today by coming to feast with us."
Then all doffed their hats humbly, without smiling or seeming to be in jest,
while Little John took the bridle rein and led the palfrey still deeper into
the forest, all marching in order, with Robin Hood walking beside the Sheriff,
hat in hand.
All this time the Sheriff said never a word but only looked
about him like one suddenly awakened from sleep; but when he found
himself going within the very depths of Sherwood his heart sank
within him, for he thought, "Surely my three hundred pounds
will be taken from me, even if they take not my life itself,
for I have plotted against their lives more than once."
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: No one could see them without feeling touched by the way in which
Louis took care of Marie. There was an almost fatherly look in the
older boy's eyes; and Marie, child though he was, seemed to be full of
gratitude to Louis. They were like two buds, scarcely separated from
the stem that bore them, swayed by the same breeze, lying in the same
ray of sunlight; but the one was a brightly colored flower, the other
somewhat bleached and pale. At a glance, a word, an inflection in
their mother's voice, they grew heedful, turned to look at her and
listened, and did at once what they were bidden, or asked, or
recommended to do. Mme. Willemsens had so accustomed them to
understand her wishes and desires, that the three seemed to have their
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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 Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: woman; whether she could not perhaps make his life as perfect as you?" she
asked, slowly.
"Oh, no woman ever could be to him what I would be. I would live for him.
He belongs to me." She bent herself forward, not crying, but her shoulders
moving. "It is such a terrible thing to be a woman, to be able to do
nothing and say nothing!"
The woman put her hand on her shoulder; the younger woman looked up into
her face; then the elder turned away and stood looking into the fire.
There was such quiet, you could hear the clock tick above the writing-
table.
The woman said: "There is one thing I can do for you. I do not know if it
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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 Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey: shivered with dread. The quiet and gloom of the forest; these fierce, wild
creatures, free in the heart of their own wilderness yet menaced by a foe, and
that strange French phrase which kept recurring in his mind--all had the
effect of conjuring up giant shadows in Joe's fanciful mind. During all his
life, until this moment, he had never feared anything; now he was afraid of
the darkness. The spectral trees spread long arms overhead, and phantom forms
stalked abroad; somewhere out in that dense gloom stirred this mysterious
foe--the "Wind of Death."
Nevertheless, he finally slept. In the dull-gray light of early morning the
Indians once more took up the line of march toward the west. They marched all
that day, and at dark halted to eat and rest. Silvertip and another Indian
The Spirit of the Border |
