| 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: after my struggle--my victory--not now!" But there had been no victory. And
now it was too late. She was betrayed, ruined, lost. That wonderful love
had wrought transformation in her--and now havoc. Once she fell against the
branches of a thick cedar that upheld her. The fragrance which had been
sweet was now bitter. Life that had been bliss was now hateful! She could
not keep still for a single moment.
Black night, cedars, brush, rocks, washes, seemed not to obstruct her. In a
frenzy she rushed on, tearing her dress, her hands, her hair. Violence of
some kind was imperative. All at once a pale gleaming open space,
shimmering under the stars, lay before her. It was water. Deep Lake! And
instantly a hideous terrible longing to destroy herself obsessed her. She
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 New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: get." Sixthly, he and several associated firms had organised a
simple and generous insurance scheme against lead-poisoning risks.
Seventhly, he never wearied in rational (as distinguished from
excessive, futile and expensive) precautions against the disease.
Eighthly, in the ill-equipped shops of his minor competitors lead
poisoning was a frequent and virulent evil, and people had
generalised from these exceptional cases. The small shops, he
hazarded, looking out of the cracked and dirty window at distant
chimneys, might be advantageously closed. . . .
"But what's the good of talking?" said my uncle, getting off the
table on which he had been sitting. "Seems to me there'll come a
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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 The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: does not yield until he is reached by the voice of the fruitful
earth that before he or the dwarfs or the giants or the Law or
the Lie or any of these things were, had the seed of them all in
her bosom, and the seed perhaps of something higher even than
himself, that shall one day supersede him and cut the tangles and
alliances and compromises that already have cost him one of his
eyes. When Erda, the First Mother of life, rises from her
sleeping-place in the heart of the earth, and warns him to yield
the ring, he obeys her; the ring is added to the heap of gold;
and all sense of Freia is cut off from the giants.
But now what Law is left to these two poor stupid laborers
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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 Paz by Honore de Balzac: Italy, were cleverly concealed. Pipes in which hot water circulated,
or steam, were either hidden under ground or festooned with plants
overhead. The boudoir was a large room. The miracle of the modern
Parisian fairy named Architecture is to get all these many and great
things out of a limited bit of ground.
The boudoir of the young countess was arranged to suit the taste of
the artist to whom Comte Adam entrusted the decoration of the house.
It is too full of pretty nothings to be a place for repose; one scarce
knows where to sit down among carved Chinese work-tables with their
myriads of fantastic figures inlaid in ivory, cups of yellow topaz
mounted on filagree, mosaics which inspire theft, Dutch pictures in
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