| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: There were remnants of faded and tattered paper-hangings, but
larger spaces of bare wall ornamented with charcoal sketches,
chiefly of people's heads in profile. These being specimens of
Peter's youthful genius, it went more to his heart to obliterate
them than if they had been pictures on a church wall by Michael
Angelo. One sketch, however, and that the best one, affected him
differently. It represented a ragged man, partly supporting
himself on a spade, and bending his lean body over a hole in the
earth, with one hand extended to grasp something that he had
found. But close behind him, with a fiendish laugh on his
features, appeared a figure with horns, a tufted tail, and a
Twice Told Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: The fact is, the adjective is either adjective, adverb, or verb,
according to occasion. In the root form it also helps to make
nouns; so that it is even more generally useful than as a
journalistic epithet with us. As a verb, it does duty as predicate
and copula combined. For such an unnecessary part of speech as a
real copula does not exist in Japanese. In spite of the shock to
the prejudices of the old school of logicians, it must be confessed
that the Tartars get on very well without any such couplings to
their trains of thought. But then we should remember that in their
sentences the cart is always put before the horse, and so needs only
to be pushed, not pulled along.
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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 A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: in the German tables:
Chicago, deaths in 1,000 population annually,
16; Philadelphia, 18; St. Louis, 18; San Francisco,
19; New York (the Dublin of America), 23.
See how the figures jump up, as soon as one arrives
at the transatlantic list:
Paris, 27; Glasgow, 27; London, 28; Vienna, 28;
Augsburg, 28; Braunschweig, 28; K:onigsberg, 29;
Cologne, 29; Dresden, 29; Hamburg, 29; Berlin, 30;
Bombay, 30; Warsaw, 31; Breslau, 31; Odessa, 32;
Munich, 33; Strasburg, 33, Pesth, 35; Cassel, 35;
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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 Whirligigs by O. Henry: der brecipices ride."
The bells of Luis's mule jingled and the pack train
filed after the warning note. Armstrong, waved a good-
bye and took his place at the tail of the procession. Up
the narrow street they turned, and passed the two-story
wooden Hotel Ingles, where Ives and Dawson and Rich-
ards and the rest of the chaps were dawdling on the broad
piazza, reading week-old newspapers. They crowded to
the railing and shouted many friendly and wise and foolish
farewells after him. Across the plaza they trotted slowly
past the bronze statue of Guzman Blanco, within its fence
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