| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey: met his gaze. He had startled Laramie out of his habitual set
taciturnity; but even as he looked the light that might have
been amaze and joy faded out of his face, leaving it the same
old mask. Still Duane had seen enough. Like a bloodhound he had
a scent.
"Talking about work, Laramie, who'd you say Snecker worked
for?"
"I didn't say."
"Well, say so now, can't you? Laramie, you're powerful peevish
to-day. It's that bump on your head. Who does Snecker work
for?"
The Lone Star Ranger |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: him through many years to come. As the two walked back across the
great quadrangle, upon which fronted the main buildings of the
castle, their arms were wound across one another's shoulders,
after the manner, as a certain great writer says, of boys and
lovers.
CHAPTER 6
A boy's life is of a very flexible sort. It takes but a little
while for it to shape itself to any new surroundings in which it
may be thrown, to make itself new friends, to settle itself to
new habits; and so it was that Myles fell directly into the ways
of the lads of Devlen. On his first morning, as he washed his
Men of Iron |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: pulse of fashion and fell into the rhythm of the larger life. It
had something to do, one day, with the particular flare of
importance of an arriving customer, a lady whose meals were
apparently irregular, yet whom she was destined, she afterwards
found, not to forget. The girl was blasee; nothing could belong
more, as she perfectly knew, to the intense publicity of her
profession; but she had a whimsical mind and wonderful nerves; she
was subject, in short, to sudden flickers of antipathy and
sympathy, red gleams in the grey, fitful needs to notice and to
"care," odd caprices of curiosity. She had a friend who had
invented a new career for women--that of being in and out of
|
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 Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles: But that a mortal seer knows more than I know--where
Hath this been proven? Or how without sign assured, can I blame
Him who saved our State when the winged songstress came,
Tested and tried in the light of us all, like gold assayed?
How can I now assent when a crime is on Oedipus laid?
CREON
Friends, countrymen, I learn King Oedipus
Hath laid against me a most grievous charge,
And come to you protesting. If he deems
That I have harmed or injured him in aught
By word or deed in this our present trouble,
Oedipus Trilogy |
