| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll: `I only hope the boat won't tipple over!' she said to herself.
Oh, WHAT a lovely one! Only I couldn't quite reach it.' `And it
certainly DID seem a little provoking (`almost as if it happened
on purpose,' she thought) that, though she managed to pick plenty
of beautiful rushes as the boat glided by, there was always a
more lovely one that she couldn't reach.
`The prettiest are always further!' she said at last, with a
sigh at the obstinacy of the rushes in growing so far off, as,
with flushed cheeks and dripping hair and hands, she scrambled
back into her place, and began to arrange her new-found treasures.
What mattered it to her just than that the rushes had begun to
Through the Looking-Glass |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
Thus mournfully communing with himself, Tom moped along the lane past
Pudd'nhead Wilson's house, and still on and on between fences enclosing
vacant country on each hand till he neared the haunted house,
then he came moping back again, with many sighs and heavy with trouble.
He sorely wanted cheerful company. Rowena! His heart gave a bound
at the thought, but the next thought quieted it--the detested twins
would be there.
He was on the inhabited side of Wilson's house, and now as
he approached it, he noticed that the sitting room was lighted.
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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 Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: strike the final balance when we are sure that our happiest
experiment has been completed."
We are not sure of that, even yet. We are still engaged, as a
committee of two, in our philosophical investigation, and we decline
to make anything but a report of progress. We know more now than we
did when we first went honeymooning in the city of Washington. For
one thing, we are certain that not even the far-famed rosemary-
fields of Narbonne, or the fragrant hillsides of the Corbieres,
yield a sweeter harvest to the busy-ness of the bees than the
Norwegian meadows and mountain-slopes yielded to our idleness in the
summer of 1888.
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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 Monster Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs: That evening as Sing was serving Virginia's supper he asked
her if she had recognized their visitor of the afternoon.
"Why no, Sing," she replied, "I never saw him before."
"Sh!" admonished the celestial. "No talkee so strong,
wallee have ear all same labbit."
"What do you mean, Sing?" asked the girl in a low voice.
"How perfectly weird and mysterious you are.
Why you make the cold chills run up my spine,"
she ended, laughing. But Sing did not return
her smile as was his custom.
"You no lememba tallee Lajah stand up wavee lite
The Monster Men |
