| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: CHAPTER XXVI
CAROL'S liveliest interest was in her walks with the baby.
Hugh wanted to know what the box-elder tree said, and what
the Ford garage said, and what the big cloud said, and she
told him, with a feeling that she was not in the least making
up stories, but discovering the souls of things. They had an
especial fondness for the hitching-post in front of the mill.
It was a brown post, stout and agreeable; the smooth leg
of it held the sunlight, while its neck, grooved by hitching-
straps, tickled one's fingers. Carol had never been awake
to the earth except as a show of changing color and great
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: when you came, pleased me. I liked to look at you.
I was tormented just then, do you see, that so many decent,
kindly people, old school-mates and friends and neighbors
of mine--and, for that matter, others all over the country
must lose their souls because they were Protestants.
At my boyhood and young manhood, that thought took the joy
out of me. Sometimes I usen't to sleep a whole night long,
for thinking that some lad I had been playing with,
perhaps in his own house, that very day, would be taken
when he died, and his mother too, when she died, and thrown
into the flames of hell for all eternity. It made me
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Out of Time's Abyss by Edgar Rice Burroughs: then apes, which was considered by Caspakians the real beginning
of evolution. From the egg, then, the individual developed
slowly into a higher form, just as the frog's egg develops through
various stages from a fish with gills to a frog with lungs.
With that thought in mind Bradley discovered that it was not
difficult to believe in the possibility of such a scheme--
there was nothing new in it.
From the ape the individual, if it survived, slowly developed
into the lowest order of man--the Alu--and then by degrees to
Bo-lu, Sto-lu, Band-lu, Kro-lu and finally Galu. And in each
stage countless millions of other eggs were deposited in the warm
Out of Time's Abyss |
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 Virginian by Owen Wister: "Oh, thank God!" she said; and he found her in his arms. Long
they embraced without speaking, and what they whispered then with
their kisses, matters not.
Thus did her New England conscience battle to the end, and, in
the end, capitulate to love. And the next day, with the bishop's
blessing, and Mrs. Taylor's broadest smile, and the ring on her
finger, the Virginian departed with his bride into the mountains.
XXXVI. AT DUNBARTON
For their first bridal camp he chose an island. Long weeks
beforehand he had thought of this place, and set his heart upon
it. Once established in his mind, the thought became a picture
The Virginian |
