| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: nothing--I'm partly mazed."
"Poor little thing!" said Godfrey. "Let me give something
towards finding it clothes."
He had put his hand in his pocket and found half-a-guinea, and,
thrusting it into Silas's hand, he hurried out of the cottage to
overtake Mr. Kimble.
"Ah, I see it's not the same woman I saw," he said, as he came up.
"It's a pretty little child: the old fellow seems to want to keep
it; that's strange for a miser like him. But I gave him a trifle to
help him out: the parish isn't likely to quarrel with him for the
right to keep the child."
Silas Marner |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: she refused to give the assistance of the state, for she could not forget
the trophies of Marathon and Salamis and Plataea; but she allowed exiles
and volunteers to assist him, and they were his salvation. And she
herself, when she was compelled, entered into the war, and built walls and
ships, and fought with the Lacedaemonians on behalf of the Parians. Now
the king fearing this city and wanting to stand aloof, when he saw the
Lacedaemonians growing weary of the war at sea, asked of us, as the price
of his alliance with us and the other allies, to give up the Hellenes in
Asia, whom the Lacedaemonians had previously handed over to him, he
thinking that we should refuse, and that then he might have a pretence for
withdrawing from us. About the other allies he was mistaken, for the
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Betty Zane by Zane Grey: consultation. One was an Indian. Wetzel recognized the fierce, stern face, the
haughty, erect figure. He knew that long, trailing war-bonnet. It could have
adorned the head of but one chief--Wingenund, the sachem of the Delawares. A
British officer, girdled and epauletted, stood next to Wingenund. Simon Girty,
the renegade, and Miller, the traitor, completed the group.
Wetzel sank to his knees. The perspiration poured from his face. The mighty
hunter trembled, but it was from eagerness. Was not Girty, the white savage,
the bane of the poor settlers, within range of a weapon that never failed? Was
not the murderous chieftain, who had once whipped and tortured him, who had
burned Crawford alive, there in plain sight? Wetzel revelled a moment in
fiendish glee. He passed his hands tenderly over the long barrel of his rifle.
Betty Zane |
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 Voice of the City by O. Henry: "What is it, Ravvy?" he asked. "The critics
been hammering your stock down?"
"Romance is dead," said Ravenel, lightly. When
Ravenel spoke lightly be was generally serious. He
picked up the magazine and fluttered its leaves.
"Even a Philistine, like you, Sammy," said Rave-
nel, seriously (a tone that insured him to be speak-
ing lightly), "ought to understand. Now, here is
a magazine that once printed Poe and Lowell and
Whitman and Bret Harte and Du Maurier and Lanier
and -- well, that gives you the idea. The current
The Voice of the City |
