| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: Next day, before you get started, he's well-nigh unmanageable.
Knows automobiles so he can lay down alongside of one and sleep
or eat hay out of it. He'll let nineteen go by without batting
an eye, and mebbe the twentieth, just because he's feeling
frisky,
he'll cut up over like a range cayuse. Generally
speaking, too lively for a gentleman, and too unexpected.
Present owner nicknamed him Judas Iscariot, and refuses to sell
without the buyer knowing all about him first. There, that's
about all I know, except look at that mane and tail. Ever see
anything like it? Hair as fine as a baby's."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: Myles heard the squires say. Lady Alice, the Earl of Mackworth's
niece and ward, a great heiress in her own right, a strikingly
pretty black-eyed girl of fourteen or fifteen.
These composed the Earl's personal family; but besides them was
Lord George Beaumont, his Earl's brother, and him Myles soon came
to know better than any of the chief people of the castle
excepting Sir James Lee.
For since Myles's great battle in the armory, Lord George had
taken a laughing sort of liking to the lad, encouraging him at
times to talk of his adventures, and of his hopes and
aspirations.
Men of Iron |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: do. I could not save you, Teule, but at least I can die with you.'
At the moment I made no answer, for I was stricken silent by my
wonder, and before I could find my tongue the priests had cast me
down, and for the second time I lay upon the stone of doom. As
they held me a yell fiercer and longer than any which had gone
before, told that the Spaniards had got foot upon the last stair of
the ascent. Scarcely had my body been set upon the centre of the
great stone, when that of Otomie was laid beside it, so close that
our sides touched, for I must lie in the middle of the stone and
there was no great place for her. Then the moment of sacrifice not
being come, the priests made us fast with cords which they knotted
Montezuma's Daughter |
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 Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: in his dreams had Lieutenant Dumay hoped for a situation so good as
this; but greater still was the satisfaction he derived from the
knowledge that his lucky enterprise had been the pivot of good fortune
to the richest commercial house in Havre.
Madame Dumay, a rather pretty little American, had the misfortune to
lose all her children at their birth; and her last confinement was so
disastrous as to deprive her of the hope of any other. She therefore
attached herself to the two little Mignons, whom Dumay himself loved,
or would have loved, even better than his own children had they lived.
Madame Dumay, whose parents were farmers accustomed to a life of
economy, was quite satisfied to receive only two thousand four hundred
Modeste Mignon |
