| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: The old knights were so proud of these names that if
a burgher called them by their right ones they would
correct them.
The most renowned scholar in Europe, at the time, was the
Herr Doctor Franz Reikmann, who lived in Heidelberg.
All Germany was proud of the venerable scholar, who lived
in the simplest way, for great scholars are always poor.
He was poor, as to money, but very rich in his sweet
young daughter Hildegarde and his library. He had been
all his life collecting his library, book and book,
and he lived it as a miser loves his hoarded gold.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Had been at work with him to bring him back?
Never among the ghosts, assuredly,
Would he originate a new attack;
Never among the ghosts, or anywhere,
Till what was dead of him was put away,
Would he attain to his offended share
Of honor among others of his day.
"You ponder like an owl," he said at last;
"You always did, and here you have a cause.
For I'm a confirmation of the past,
A vengeance, and a flowering of what was.
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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 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: churchyard, between services on Sundays; gathering grapes for
them from the wild vines that overran the surrounding trees;
reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones;
or sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the
adjacent mill-pond; while the more bashful country bumpkins hung
sheepishly back, envying his superior elegance and address.
From his half-itinerant life, also, he was a kind of
traveling gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from
house to house, so that his appearance was always greeted with
satisfaction. He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of
great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, and
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
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 Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: to Dr. Grimstone of Bungay, by whom he would be liberally rewarded.
This he promised to do, though not until he had urged me almost
with tears to accompany them myself.
With the gold and the deeds I sent several letters; to my father,
my sister, my brother, Dr. Grimstone, Squire Bozard, and lastly to
Lily herself. In these letters I gave an account of my life and
fortunes since I had come to Spain, for I gathered that others
which I had sent had never reached England, and told them of my
resolution to follow de Garcia to the ends of the earth.
'Others,' I wrote to Lily, 'may think me a madman thus to postpone,
or perchance to lose, a happiness which I desire above anything on
Montezuma's Daughter |
