| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: of this country was dense jungle, so dense that we could not see
on either side more than fifteen or twenty feet. Occasionally,
atop the ridges, however, we would come upon small open parks. In
these jungles live millions of human beings.
At once, as soon as we had turned into the main road, we began to
meet people. In the grain fields of the valley we saw only the
elevated boys, and a few men engaged in weaving a little house
perched on stilts. We came across some of these little houses all
completed, with conical roofs. They were evidently used for
granaries. As we mounted the slope on the other side, however,
the trees closed in, and we found ourselves marching down the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Desert Gold by Zane Grey: he had worked out an irrigation plan to bring the water down for
mining uses, and to make a paradise out of that part of Altar Valley
which lay in the United States. Belding claimed there was gold in
the arroyos, gold in the gulches, not in quantities to make a
prospector rejoice, but enough to work for. And the soil on the
higher levels of Altar Valley needed only water to make it grow
anything the year round. Gale, too, had come to have dreams of
a future for Forlorn River.
On the afternoon of the following day Ladd unexpectedly appeared
leading a lame and lathered horse into the yard. Belding and Gale,
who were at work at the forge, looked up and were surprised out
Desert Gold |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: It was long ago.
Let us hurry, beloved! the hard hooves trample;
The treetops tremble and glow.
* * * * *
In the clear dark, on silent wings,
The red bat hovers beneath her moon;
She drops through the fragrant night, and clings
Fast in the shadow, with hands like claws,
With soft eyes closed and mouth that feeds,
To the young white flesh that warmly bleeds.
The maidens circle in dance, and raise
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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 Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: tenderness--but still a genius worthy to be placed beside those
ancient writers from whom he took his manner. Whether or not we
agree with his contemporaries, who say that he equalled Virgil in
Latin poetry, we may place him fairly as a prose writer by the side
of Demosthenes, Cicero, or Tacitus. And so I pass from this painful
subject; only quoting--if I may be permitted to quote--Mr. Burton's
wise and gentle verdict on the whole. "Buchanan," he says, "though
a zealous Protestant, had a good deal of the Catholic and sceptical
spirit of Erasmus, and an admiring eye for everything that was great
and beautiful. Like the rest of his countrymen, he bowed himself in
presence of the lustre that surrounded the early career of his
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