| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: drove him with prodigious violence against the corner of the
table. The pirate emitted a grunting cry and then they fell
together, Mainwaring upon the top, and the pistol clattered with
them to the floor in their fall. Even as he fell, Mainwaring
roared in a voice of thunder, "All hands repel boarders!" And
then again, "All hands repel boarders!"
Whether hurt by the table edge or not, the fallen pirate
struggled as though possessed of forty devils, and in a moment or
two Mainwaring saw the shine of a long, keen knife that he had
drawn from somewhere about his person. The lieutenant caught him
by the wrist, but the other's muscles were as though made of
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: twenty miles, returned to his night's lodging with nineteen head
of fine game and one duck, which he tied to his belt, as it would
not go into the game-bag. His companions had long been awake, and
had had time to get hungry and have breakfast.
"Wait a bit, wait a bit, I know there are nineteen," said Levin,
counting a second time over the grouse and snipe, that looked so
much less important now, bent and dry and bloodstained, with
heads crooked aside, than they did when they were flying.
The number was verified, and Stepan Arkadyevitch's envy pleased
Levin. He was pleased too on returning to find the man sent by
Kitty with a note was already there.
Anna Karenina |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: guide told us that boats could go from there to our camp--but
"long way--all day."
This water was somewhat clearer than that we had left, but
we could not judge well from the margin. We skirted it for
another half hour or so, the ground growing firmer as we
advanced, and presently we turned the corner of a wooded
promontory and saw a quite different country--a sudden view
of mountains, steep and bare.
"One of those long easterly spurs," Terry said appraisingly.
"May be hundreds of miles from the range. They crop out like that."
Suddenly we left the lake and struck directly toward the
Herland |
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 A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: prior to the American Revolution, and give credit to prominent Englishmen
for the services they rendered the Americans," to group five, "Textbooks
which deal fully with the grievances of the colonists, make no reference
to general political conditions in England prior to the American
Revolution, nor to any prominent Englishmen who devoted themselves to the
cause of the Americans." Of course, what dwindles is the amount said
about our English sympathizers. In groups three and four this is so
scanty as to distort the truth and send any boy or girl who studied books
of these groups out of school into life with a very imperfect idea indeed
of the size and importance of English opposition to the policy of George
III; in group five nothing is said about this at all. The boys and girls
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