| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: By the lake he sat and pondered,
By the still, transparent water;
Saw the sturgeon, Nahma, leaping,
Scattering drops like beads of wampum,
Saw the yellow perch, the Sahwa,
Like a sunbeam in the water,
Saw the pike, the Maskenozha,
And the herring, Okahahwis,
And the Shawgashee, the crawfish!
"Master of Life!" he cried, desponding,
"Must our lives depend on these things?"
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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 Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: could be with Glenn?
And yet there were forced upon her, insistent and perplexing, the
questions--was her love selfish? was she considering him? was she blind to
something he could see? Tomorrow and next day and the days to come held
promise of joyous companionship with Glenn, yet likewise they seemed full
of a portent of trouble for her, or fight and ordeal, of lessons that would
make life significant for her.
CHAPTER III
Carley was awakened by rattling sounds in her room. The raising of sleepy
eyelids disclosed Flo on her knees before the little stove, ill the act of
lighting a fire.
The Call of the Canyon |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: he spoke, it was from the corner of his mouth, and in a sort of
light growl, like a dog, when an attempt is made to take a bone
from him. The fellow had already made me believe him even
_worse_ than he had been presented. With his directions, and
without stopping to question, I started for the woods, quite
anxious to perform my first exploit in driving, in a creditable
manner. The distance from the house to the woods gate a full
mile, I should think--was passed over with very little
difficulty; for although the animals ran, I was fleet enough, in
the open field, to keep pace with them; especially as they pulled
me along at the end of the rope; but, on reaching the woods, I
My Bondage and My Freedom |
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 Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: countersigned the admiration of the public. One point, however,
calls for explanation; the chapter on Grunewald was torn by the hand
of the author in the palace gardens; how comes it, then, to figure
at full length among my more modest pages, the Lion of the caravan?
That eminent literatus was a man of method; 'Juvenal by double
entry,' he was once profanely called; and when he tore the sheets in
question, it was rather, as he has since explained, in the search
for some dramatic evidence of his sincerity, than with the thought
of practical deletion. At that time, indeed, he was possessed of
two blotted scrolls and a fair copy in double. But the chapter, as
the reader knows, was honestly omitted from the famous 'Memoirs on
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