| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon: will not faint or flag--he will stand the toil from being long
accustomed to the same experiences in capturing wild beasts. In the
next place, men so trained will be capable of sleeping on hard
couches, and prove brave guardians of the posts assigned them. In the
actual encounter with the enemy, they will know at once how to attack
and to carry out the word of command as it passes along the lines,
because it was just so in the old hunting days that they captured the
wild game. If posted in the van of battle, they will not desert their
ranks, because endurance is engrained in them. In the rout of the
enemy their footsteps will not falter nor fail: straight as an arrow
they will follow the flying foe, on every kind of ground, through long
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: in another manner."
"And what manner, pray?"
"Well, elsewhere."
"Elsewhere?--I SAY!"
This was an ejaculation used also by Captain Everard, but oh with
what a different sound! "You needn't 'say'--there's nothing to be
said. And yet you ought perhaps to know."
"Certainly I ought. But WHAT--up to now?"
"Why exactly what I told him. That I'd do anything for him."
"What do you mean by 'anything'?"
"Everything."
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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 House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: should crumble to ruin once in twenty years, or thereabouts, as a
hint to the people to examine into and reform the institutions which
they symbolize."
"How you hate everything old!" said Phoebe in dismay. "It makes
me dizzy to think of such a shifting world!"
"I certainly love nothing mouldy," answered Holgrave. "Now, this
old Pyncheon House! Is it a wholesome place to live in, with its
black shingles, and the green moss that shows how damp they are?
--its dark, low-studded rooms--its grime and sordidness, which are
the crystallization on its walls of the human breath, that has been
drawn and exhaled here in discontent and anguish? The house ought
House of Seven Gables |
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 Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: hand, and gazing at the deep hole which its roots had left in
the soil.
Much to her astonishment, this hole kept spreading wider and
wider, and growing deeper and deeper, until it really seemed to
have no bottom; and all the while, there came a rumbling noise
out of its depths, louder and louder, and nearer and nearer,
and sounding like the tramp of horses' hoofs and the rattling
of wheels. Too much frightened to run away, she stood straining
her eyes into this wonderful cavity, and soon saw a team of
four sable horses, snorting smoke out of their nostrils, and
tearing their way out of the earth with a splendid golden
Tanglewood Tales |
