| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: goggles, only to ascertain that she had forgotten them. Nothing, except a
freezing sleety wind, annoyed and punished Carley so much as a hard puffy
wind, full of sand and dust. Somewhere along the first few miles of this
road she was to meet Glenn. If she turned back for any cause he would be
worried, and, what concerned her more vitally, he would think she had not
the courage to face a little dust. So Carley rode on.
The wind appeared to be gusty. It would blow hard awhile, then lull for a
few moments. On the whole, however, it increased in volume and persistence
until she was riding against a gale. She had now come to a bare, flat,
gravelly region, scant of cedars and brush, and far ahead she could see a
dull yellow pall rising high into the sky. It was a duststorm and it was
The Call of the Canyon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: him?"
"No, sir, nothing. Or yes, perhaps, but I don't suppose that will
be any good."
"What was it? What do you mean?"
"It gave him a good deal of trouble to get the lady into the wagon,
because she had fainted again. He lost his glove in doing it. I
have it down stairs in my room, for I sleep down stairs again since
the lady has gone."
Muller had risen from his chair and walked over to the old writing
desk which stood beside one window. There were several sheets of
ordinary brown paper on it and sharp pointed pencil and also
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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 Timaeus by Plato: receives likenesses of objects and gives back images of them to the sight;
and so might strike terror into the desires, when, making use of the bitter
part of the liver, to which it is akin, it comes threatening and invading,
and diffusing this bitter element swiftly through the whole liver produces
colours like bile, and contracting every part makes it wrinkled and rough;
and twisting out of its right place and contorting the lobe and closing and
shutting up the vessels and gates, causes pain and loathing. And the
converse happens when some gentle inspiration of the understanding pictures
images of an opposite character, and allays the bile and bitterness by
refusing to stir or touch the nature opposed to itself, but by making use
of the natural sweetness of the liver, corrects all things and makes them
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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 Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: Homer bearing within him an /Odyssey/ doomed to oblivion. The
greatness was so real that it triumphed over his abject position; the
despotism so much a part of him, that it rose above his poverty.
There are violent passions which drive a man to good or evil, making
of him a hero or a convict; of these there was not one that had failed
to leave its traces on the grandly-hewn, lividly Italian face. You
trembled lest a flash of thought should suddenly light up the deep
sightless hollows under the grizzled brows, as you might fear to see
brigands with torches and poniards in the mouth of a cavern. You felt
that there was a lion in that cage of flesh, a lion spent with useless
raging against iron bars. The fires of despair had burned themselves
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