| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: gradually so stationed their settlements that the traveler might each
morning ride out from one mission and by evening of a day's fair journey
ride into the next. A lonely, rough, dangerous road, but lovely, too,
with a name like music--El Camino Real. Like music also were the names of
the missions--San Juan Capistrano, San Luis Rey de Francia, San Miguel,
Santa Ynes--their very list is a song.
So there, by-and-by, was our continent, with the locomotive whistling
from Savannah to Boston along its eastern edge, and on the western the
scattered chimes of Spain ringing among the unpeopIed mountains. Thus
grew the two sorts of civilization--not equally. We know what has
happened since. To-day the locomotive is whistling also from The Golden
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: Rua sang, and his voice went hollow about the walls,
"Valley of shadow and rock, a doleful prison to me,
What is the life you can give to a child of the sun and the sea?"
And Rua arose and came to the open mouth of the glen,
Whence he beheld the woods, and the sea, and houses of men.
Wide blew the riotous trade, and smelt in his nostrils good;
It bowed the boats on the bay, and tore and divided the wood;
It smote and sundered the groves as Moses smote with the rod,
And the streamers of all the trees blew like banners abroad;
And ever and on, in a lull, the trade wind brought him along
A far-off patter of drums and a far-off whisper of song.
Ballads |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: paused, looked at the Shade, and said:
" 'To-morrow.'
"Then he turned heavenwards once more, spread his wings, and clove
through space as a vessel cuts through the waves, hardly showing her
white sails to the exiles left on some deserted shore.
"The Shade uttered appalling cries, to which the damned responded from
the lowest circle, the deepest in the immensity of suffering, to the
more peaceful zone near the surface on which we were standing. This
worst torment of all had appealed to all the rest. The turmoil was
swelled by the roar of a sea of fire which formed a bass to the
terrific harmony of endless millions of suffering souls.
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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 Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: dragged the engine up. They were all drunk; they kept stumbling
and falling down, and all had a helpless expression and tears in
their eyes.
"Wenches, water! " shouted the elder, who was drunk, too. "Look
sharp, wenches!"
The women and the girls ran downhill to where there was a spring,
and kept hauling pails and buckets of water up the hill, and,
pouring it into the engine, ran down again. Olga and Marya and
Sasha and Motka all brought water. The women and the boys pumped
the water; the pipe hissed, and the elder, directing it now at
the door, now at the windows, held back the stream with his
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