| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: be guided and controlled."
"Ah, monsieur! you are rich, you are a man, and you have but one son,"
said Agathe.
"Faith!" said Claparon, "children do tyrannize over us--over our
hearts, I mean. Mine makes me furious; he has nearly ruined me, and
now I won't have anything to do with him--it's a sort of independence.
Well, he is the happier for it, and so am I. That fellow was partly
the cause of his mother's death. He chose to be a commercial
traveller; and the trade just suited him, for he was no sooner in the
house than he wanted to be out of it; he couldn't keep in one place,
and he wouldn't learn anything. All I ask of God is that I may die
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: flying, rushing away into the great plain, until sight and sound of them
were lost, and only the sage-brush was there, bathed in the high, bright
moon. The last thing I remember as I lay in my blankets was Jessamine's
window still lighted, and the water-tank, clear-lined and black, standing
over Separ.
DESTINY AT DRYBONE
PART I
Children have many special endowments, and of these the chiefest is to
ask questions that their elders must skirmish to evade. Married people
and aunts and uncles commonly discover this, but mere instinct does not
guide one to it. A maiden of twenty-three will not necessarily divine it.
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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 The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: To know them at their firesides, or out walking, --"
"Horrors," I said, "are my necessity;
And I would have them, for their best effect,
Always out walking."
Ferguson frowned at me:
"The wisest of us are not those who laugh
Before they know. Most of us never know --
Or the long toil of our mortality
Would not be done. Most of us never know --
And there you have a reason to believe
In God, if you may have no other. Norcross,
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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 Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: till the traces broke and the dogs went on down under the ice.
There was little meat to them, but I had counted on them for a
week's grub, and they were gone.
"The next morning I divided all the grub, which was little, into
three portions. And I told Long Jeff that he could keep up with
us, or not, as he saw fit; for we were going to travel light and
fast. But he raised his voice and cried over his sore feet and
his troubles, and said harsh things against comradeship. Passuk's
feet were sore, and my feet were sore--ay, sorer than his, for we
had worked with the dogs; also, we looked to see. Long Jeff swore
he would die before he hit the trail again; so Passuk took a fur
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