| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: horse, there were no gun-sheaths on the saddle.
"A rustler who didn't pack guns!" muttered Venters. "He wears no
belt. He couldn't pack guns in that rig....Strange!"
A low, gasping intake of breath and a sudden twitching of body
told Venters the rider still lived.
"He's alive!...I've got to stand here and watch him die. And I
shot an unarmed man."
Shrinkingly Venters removed the rider's wide sombrero and the
black cloth mask. This action disclosed bright chestnut hair,
inclined to curl, and a white, youthful face. Along the lower
line of cheek and jaw was a clear demarcation, where the brown of
Riders of the Purple Sage |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: of her eyes, but they came to the surface only after the foreman
had departed.
McWilliams ordered a team of young horse hitched, and presently
set out on his two day; journey to Gimlet Butte. He reached that
town in good season, left the team at a corral and walked back to
the Elk House. The white dust of the plains was heavy on him,
from the bandanna that loosely embraced the brown throat above
the flannel shirt to the encrusted boots but through it the good
humor of his tanned face smiled fraternally on a young woman he
passes at the entrance to the hotel. Her gay smile met his
cordially, and she was still in his mind while he ran his eye
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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 On Revenues by Xenophon: be carried out at once, or else there is to be no advantage in it at
all. On the contrary, whatever number of houses are erected, or ships
are built, or slaves purchased, etc., these portions will begin to pay
at once. In fact, the bit-by-bit method of proceeding will be more
advantageous than a simultaneous carrying into effect of the whole
plan, to this extent: if we set about erecting buildings wholesale[41]
we shall make a more expensive and worse job of it than if we finish
them off gradually. Again, if we set about bidding for hundreds of
slaves at once we shall be forced to purchase an inferior type at a
higher cost. Whereas, if we proceed tentatively, as we find ourselves
able,[42] we can complete any well-devised attempt at our leisure,[43]
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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 Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: unimportant compared with the present. He gave little thought to
the future.
Then, suddenly, his entire attention became focused an the future.
Just when he had fallen in love with Elizabeth Wheeler he did not
know. He had gone away to the war, leaving her a little girl,
apparently, and he had come back to find her, a woman. He did not
even know he was in love, at first. It was when, one day, he found
himself driving past the Wheeler house without occasion that he
began to grow uneasy.
The future at once became extraordinarily important and so also,
but somewhat less vitally, the past. Had he the right to marry, if
The Breaking Point |
