| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Desert Gold by Zane Grey: with me and talk his head off. He made love to me. He begged me
to marry him. I told him I was already in love and engaged to be
married. He said that didn't make any difference. Then I called
him a fool.
Next time he saw me he said he must explain. He meant I was being
true to a man who, everybody on the border knew, had been lost in
the desert. That--that hurt. Maybe--maybe it's true. Sometimes
it seems terribly true. Since then, of course, I have stayed in the
house to avoid being hurt again.
"But, Dad, a little thing like a girl sticking close to her mother
and room doesn't stop Mr. Chase. I think he's crazy. Anyway,
Desert Gold |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: some of the candles guttered and went out; the parson in his black robe spoke
of death and judgment; I thought I heard a child's voice screaming, and could
hardly believe it was only the wind, and felt uneasy and full of forebodings;
all my faith and philosophy deserted me, and I had a horrid feeling that I
should probably be well punished, though for what I had no precise idea.
If it had not been so dark, and if the wind had not howled so despairingly,
<158> I should have paid little attention to the threats issuing
from the pulpit; but, as it was, I fell to making good resolutions.
This is always a bad sign,--only those who break them make them;
and if you simply do as a matter of course that which is right as it comes,
any preparatory resolving to do so becomes completely superfluous.
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Faith of Men by Jack London: won the silent victory, and his kindness plus his great muscles and
square jaw, nerved her to disregard Snettishane's call.
But in the morning she arose very much afraid, and went about her
duties in momentary fear of her father's coming. As the day wore
along, however, she began to recover her spirits. John Fox,
soundly berating McLean and McTavish for some petty dereliction of
duty, helped her to pluck up courage. She tried not to let him go
out of her sight, and when she followed him into the huge cache and
saw him twirling and tossing great bales around as though they were
feather pillows, she felt strengthened in her disobedience to her
father. Also (it was her first visit to the warehouse, and Sin
|
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 Human Drift by Jack London: theoretical, as will be shown by a comparison of deaths in battle
and men involved, in the South African War and the Spanish-
American War on the one hand, and the Civil War or the Napoleonic
Wars on the other.
Not only has war, by its own evolution, rendered itself futile,
but man himself, with greater wisdom and higher ethics, is opposed
to war. He has learned too much. War is repugnant to his common
sense. He conceives it to be wrong, to be absurd, and to be very
expensive. For the damage wrought and the results accomplished,
it is not worth the price. Just as in the disputes of individuals
the arbitration of a civil court instead of a blood feud is more
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