| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: plantation, a map of the life to which he was approaching.
He saw the distant slaves at their toil; he saw afar their
villages of huts gleaming out in long rows on many a plantation,
distant from the stately mansions and pleasure-grounds of the
master;--and as the moving picture passed on, his poor, foolish
heart would be turning backward to the Kentucky farm, with its old
shadowy beeches,--to the master's house, with its wide, cool halls,
and, near by, the little cabin overgrown with the multiflora and
bignonia. There he seemed to see familiar faces of comrades who
had grown up with him from infancy; he saw his busy wife, bustling
in her preparations for his evening meals; he heard the merry laugh
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: Your words will live forever, men will say
"She was the perfect lover" -- I shall die,
I loved too much to live. Go Sappho, go --
I hate your hands that beat so full of life,
Go, lest my hatred hurt you. I shall die,
But you will live to love and love again.
He might have loved some other spring than this;
I should have kept my life -- I let it go.
He would not love me now tho' Cypris bound
Her girdle round me. I am Death's, not Love's.
Go from me, Sappho, back to find the sun.
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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 La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: the soft, ever-changing country of Touraine, a land that you learn to
see afresh in all the thousand chance effects produced by daylight and
sky and the time of year.
The children scampered through the orchard, scrambled about the
terraces, chased the lizards, scarcely less nimble than they;
investigating flowers and seeds and insects, continually referring all
questions to their mother, running to and fro between the garden and
the summer-house. Children have no need of toys in the country,
everything amuses them.
Mme. Willemsens sat at her embroidery during their lessons. She never
spoke, nor did she look at masters or pupils; but she followed
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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 Adventure by Jack London: Down on the beach he built a bonfire out of the contents of the
canoes, his blacks smashing, breaking, and looting everything they
laid hands on. The canoes themselves, splintered and broken,
filled with sand and coral-boulders, were towed out to ten fathoms
of water and sunk.
"Ten fathoms will be deep enough for them to work in," Sheldon
said, as they walked back to the compound.
Here a Saturnalia had broken loose. The war-songs and dances were
more unrestrained, and, from abuse, the plantation blacks had
turned to pelting their helpless foes with pieces of wood, handfuls
of pebbles, and chunks of coral-rock. And the seventy-five lusty
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