| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: person before a number of males with the purpose of ultimate selection.
"I've got to find some work," she muttered, soberly.
At the moment she heard the postman's whistle outside; and a little later
the servant brought up her mail. The first letter, large, soiled, thick,
bore the postmark Flagstaff, and her address in Glenn Kilbourne's writing.
Carley stared at it. Her heart gave a great leap. Her hand shook. She sat
down suddenly as if the strength of her legs was inadequate to uphold her.
"Glenn has--written me!" she whispered, in slow, halting realization. "For
what? Oh, why?"
The other letters fell off her lap, to lie unnoticed. This big thick
envelope fascinated her. It was one of the stamped envelopes she had seen
The Call of the Canyon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: of their level headfasts, exposing to view their cleared decks and
covered hatches, prepared to drop stern first out of the labouring
ranks, displaying the true comeliness of form which only her proper
sea-trim gives to a ship. And for a good quarter of a mile, from
the dockyard gate to the farthest corner, where the old housed-in
hulk, the President (drill-ship, then, of the Naval Reserve), used
to lie with her frigate side rubbing against the stone of the quay,
above all these hulls, ready and unready, a hundred and fifty lofty
masts, more or less, held out the web of their rigging like an
immense net, in whose close mesh, black against the sky, the heavy
yards seemed to be entangled and suspended.
The Mirror of the Sea |
| 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: every age. Like some great building that has suffered many
modifications of successive generations of architects, some sombre
weather-beaten pile, the delight of a poet, the story would drive the
commentator and the industrious winnower of words, facts, and dates to
despair. The narrator believes in it, as all superstitious minds in
Flanders likewise believe; and is not a whit wiser nor more credulous
than his audience. But as it would be impossible to make a harmony of
all the different renderings, here are the outlines of the story;
stripped, it may be, of its picturesque quaintness, but with all its
bold disregard of historical truth, and its moral teachings approved
by religion--a myth, the blossom of imaginative fancy; an allegory
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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 The Vision Splendid by William MacLeod Raine: Gets in the road of the boosters to croak hard times."
Alice observed the thick rolls of purple fat that bulged over his
collar.
"Progress now," he went on. "I'm for progress. Develop the
country. That gives work to the laborers and keeps them contented.
But men like Farnum are always hampering development by annoying
capital. Now that's foolish because capital employs labor."
The young woman suggested another possibility. "Or else labor
employs capital."
"What!" The fat little man sat bolt upright in surprise. "I guess
you never heard your Uncle Joe Powers talk any such foolishness."
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