| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: that our family tree never had but one limb to it, and that that
one stuck out at right angles, and bore fruit winter and summer.
Early in the fifteenth century we have Beau Twain, called "the Scholar."
He wrote a beautiful, beautiful hand. And he could imitate anybody's
hand so closely that it was enough to make a person laugh his head
off to see it. He had infinite sport with his talent. But by and
by he took a contract to break stone for a road, and the roughness
of the work spoiled his hand. Still, he enjoyed life all the time
he was in the stone business, which, with inconsiderable intervals,
was some forty-two years. In fact, he died in harness. During all
those long years he gave such satisfaction that he never was through
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: body, the face outwardly cool, watchful, reticent as before. He
fancied the slough of disappointment into which God had crushed
the soul of this man: would he struggle out? Would he take Miss
Herne as the first step in his stair-way, or be content to be
flung down in vigorous manhood to the depth of impotent poverty?
He could not tell if the quiet on Holmes's face were stolid
defiance or submission: the dumb kings might have looked thus
beneath the feet of Pharaoh. When he walked over the floor, too,
weak as he was it was with the old iron tread. He asked Knowles
presently what business he had gone into.
"My old hobby in an humble way,--the House of Refuge."
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare: To certain articles which there we did propound.
From Graecia through the boisterous Hellespont,
We came unto the fields of Lestrigon,
Whereas our brother Corineius was,
Since when we passed the Cicillian gulf,
And so transfretting the Illirian sea,
Arrived on the coasts of Aquitaine,
Where with an army of his barbarous Gauls
Goffarius and his brother Gathelus
Encountering with our host, sustained the foil.
And for your sakes my Turnus there I lost,
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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 Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: up now. Come, tell me you like to do things for me,
and don't deny it."
The repressed child said, "Yes, I do, miss," and continued
to stir the fire perfunctorily.
"Stay a little longer and I will give you a crooked six-pence,"
said Eustacia, more gently. "Put in one piece of wood
every two or three minutes, but not too much at once.
I am going to walk along the ridge a little longer,
but I shall keep on coming to you. And if you hear a frog
jump into the pond with a flounce like a stone thrown in,
be sure you run and tell me, because it is a sign of rain."
Return of the Native |
