| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson: "Haunted?" repeated Dick, with a chill. "I have not heard of it.
Nay, then, and by whom?"
The messenger looked about him; and then, in a low whisper, "By the
sacrist of St. John's," he said. "They had him there to sleep one
night, and in the morning - whew! - he was gone. The devil had
taken him, they said; the more betoken, he had drunk late the night
before."
Dick followed the man with black forebodings.
CHAPTER III - THE ROOM OVER THE CHAPEL
From the battlements nothing further was observed. The sun
journeyed westward, and at last went down; but, to the eyes of all
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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 Mountains by Stewart Edward White: stabbed a little sharp knife into your groin; it has
come to be night; the mercury is away below zero,
and with aching fingers you are to prepare a camp
which is only an anticipation of many more such
camps in the ensuing days. For a week it has
rained, so that you, pushing through the dripping
brush, are soaked and sodden and comfortless, and
the bushes have become horrible to your shrinking
goose-flesh. Or you are just plain tired out, not
from a single day's fatigue, but from the gradual
exhaustion of a long hike. Then in your secret soul
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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 Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: little.
The faithful flock, who walked with a firm step high and dry above the
surge, heard all about them the dreadful whistling of the blast; great
billows broke across their path, but an irresistible force cleft a way
for them through the sea. These believing ones saw through the spray a
dim speck of light flickering in the window of a fisherman's hut on
the shore, and each one, as he pushed on bravely towards the light,
seemed to hear the voice of his fellow crying, "Courage!" through all
the roaring of the surf; yet no one had spoken a word--so absorbed was
each by his own peril. In this way they reached the shore.
When they were all seated near the fisherman's fire, they looked round
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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 My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: government, was, his system of whipping slaves, as he said, _in
advance_ of deserving it. He always managed to have one or two
slaves to whip on Monday morning, so as to start his hands to
their work, under the inspiration of a new assurance on Monday,
that his preaching about kindness, mercy, brotherly love, and the
like, on Sunday, did not interfere with, or prevent him from
establishing his authority, by the cowskin. He seemed to wish to
assure them, that his tears over poor, lost and ruined sinners,
and his pity for them, did not reach to the blacks who tilled his
fields. This saintly Hopkins used to boast, that he was the best
hand to manage a Negro in the county. He whipped for the
My Bondage and My Freedom |
