| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: Of revellers, and with tender foliage wreathe
The bending spear-wands. As to trees the vine
Is crown of glory, as to vines the grape,
Bulls to the herd, to fruitful fields the corn,
So the one glory of thine own art thou.
When the Fates took thee hence, then Pales' self,
And even Apollo, left the country lone.
Where the plump barley-grain so oft we sowed,
There but wild oats and barren darnel spring;
For tender violet and narcissus bright
Thistle and prickly thorn uprear their heads.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: Carley felt herself propelled forward out of the saddle into the air, and
down to strike with a sliding, stunning force that ended in sudden dark
oblivion.
Upon recovering consciousness she first felt a sensation of oppression in
her chest and a dull numbness of her whole body. When she opened her eyes
she saw Glenn bending over her, holding her head on his knee. A wet, cold,
reviving sensation evidently came from the handkerchief with which he was
mopping her face.
"Carley, you can't be hurt--really!" he was ejaculating, in eager hope. "It
was some spill. But you lit on the sand and slid. You can't be hurt."
The look of his eyes, the tone of his voice, the feel of his hands were
The Call of the Canyon |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: their husbands, brothers, and sons fought and died on six battle fronts
abroad--six hundred and fifty-eight thousand died, remember; do you
remember the number of Americans killed in action?--less than thirty-six
thousand;--those English women worked on, seven millions of them at
least, on milk carts, motor-busses, elevators, steam engines, and in
making ammunition. Never before had any woman worked on more than 150 of
the 500 different processes that go to the making of munitions. They now
handled T. N. T., and fulminate of mercury, more deadly still; helped
build guns, gun carriages, and three-and-a-half ton army cannons; worked
overhead traveling cranes for moving the boilers of battleships: turned
lathes, made every part of an aeroplane. And who were these seven million
|
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 Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: For not one word of God only, but both, should be preached; new
and old things should be brought out of the treasury, as well the
voice of the law as the word of grace. The voice of the law
should be brought forward, that men may be terrified and brought
to a knowledge of their sins, and thence be converted to
penitence and to a better manner of life. But we must not stop
here; that would be to wound only and not to bind up, to strike
and not to heal, to kill and not to make alive, to bring down to
hell and not to bring back, to humble and not to exalt. Therefore
the word of grace and of the promised remission of sin must also
be preached, in order to teach and set up faith, since without
|
