| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Just Folks by Edgar A. Guest: When at last we've run it through.
Could we only understand it
As we shall some distant day
We should see that He who planned it
Knew our needs along the way.
A Boy's Tribute
Prettiest girl I've ever seen
Is Ma.
Lovelier than any queen
Is Ma.
Girls with curls go walking by,
Just Folks |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: low as hardly to deserve the name, truth to the fact is of
importance to the education and comfort of mankind, and so
hard to preserve, that the faithful trying to do so will lend
some dignity to the man who tries it. Our judgments are
based upon two things: first, upon the original preferences
of our soul; but, second, upon the mass of testimony to the
nature of God, man, and the universe which reaches us, in
divers manners, from without. For the most part these divers
manners are reducible to one, all that we learn of past times
and much that we learn of our own reaching us through the
medium of books or papers, and even he who cannot read
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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 Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: Her cheeks grew red and her eyes grew bright, as she locked her hand
in her lover's, and tripped lightly with him into the church.
"This marriage will not stand," said the bishop, "for they have not been
thrice asked in church."
"We will ask them seven times," said Little John, "lest three
should not suffice."
"And in the meantime," said Robin, "the knight and the bishop
shall dance to my harping."
So Robin sat in the church porch and played away merrily, while his
foresters formed a ring, in the centre of which the knight and bishop
danced with exemplary alacrity; and if they relaxed their exertions,
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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 Daisy Miller by Henry James: Her mother was a small, spare, light person, with a
wandering eye, a very exiguous nose, and a large forehead,
decorated with a certain amount of thin, much frizzled hair.
Like her daughter, Mrs. Miller was dressed with extreme elegance;
she had enormous diamonds in her ears. So far as Winterbourne
could observe, she gave him no greeting--she certainly was not
looking at him. Daisy was near her, pulling her shawl straight.
"What are you doing, poking round here?" this young lady inquired,
but by no means with that harshness of accent which her choice
of words may imply.
"I don't know," said her mother, turning toward the lake again.
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