| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: did not altogether discourage his hopes. Certain it is, his
advances were signals for rival candidates to retire, who felt no
inclination to cross a lion in his amours; insomuch, that when
his horse was seen tied to Van Tassel's paling, on a Sunday
night, a sure sign that his master was courting, or, as it is
termed, " sparking," within, all other suitors passed by in
despair, and carried the war into other quarters.
Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to
contend, and, considering, all things, a stouter man than he
would have shrunk from the competition, and a wiser man would
have despaired. He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: off, to the moment when it is no more than a few dispersed and
rusting rags and fragments of steel--pressed upon the stray
visitor to the battlefield as souvenirs. All good factories are
intensely interesting places to visit, but a good munition
factory is romantically satisfactory. It is as nearly free from
the antagonism of employer and employed as any factory can be.
The busy sheds I visited near Paris struck me as being the most
living and active things in the entire war machine. Everywhere
else I saw fitful activity, or men waiting. I have seen more men
sitting about and standing about, more bored inactivity, during
my tour than I have ever seen before in my life. Even the front
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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 Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: served as a protection to the window place, and saw that the house
stood upon the border of a large open space, in the midst of which
a great pyramid towered a hundred feet or more into the air. On
the top of this pyramid was a building of stone that I took to be a
temple, and rightly, in front of which a fire burned. Marvelling
what the purpose of this great work might be, and in honour of what
faith it was erected, I went to sleep.
On the morrow I was to learn.
Here it may be convenient for me to state, what I did not discover
till afterwards, that I was in the city of Tobasco, the capital of
one of the southern provinces of Anahuac, which is situated at a
Montezuma's Daughter |
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 Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: servants whom they have trusted with their affairs. Some are kept
in continual anxiety by the caprice of rich relations, whom they
cannot please and dare not offend. Some husbands are imperious and
some wives perverse, and, as it is always more easy to do evil than
good, though the wisdom or virtue of one can very rarely make many
happy, the folly or vice of one makes many miserable."
"If such be the general effect of marriage," said the Prince, "I
shall for the future think it dangerous to connect my interest with
that of another, lest I should be unhappy by my partner's fault."
"I have met," said the Princess, "with many who live single for
that reason, but I never found that their prudence ought to raise
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