| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne: the opening, when a light appeared, dim at first, but gradually
growing brighter, and Harry's voice was heard shouting,
"Come, Mr. Starr! come, father! The road to New Aberfoyle is open!"
If, by some superhuman power, engineers could have raised in a block,
a thousand feet thick, all that portion of the terrestrial
crust which supports the lakes, rivers, gulfs, and territories
of the counties of Stirling, Dumbarton, and Renfrew, they would
have found, under that enormous lid, an immense excavation,
to which but one other in the world can be compared--
the celebrated Mammoth caves of Kentucky. This excavation was
composed of several hundred divisions of all sizes and shapes.
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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: canyon had opened there to sky and light for millions of years; and
doubtless it had harbored sheep herders, Indians, cliff dwellers,
barbarians. She was a woman with white skin and a cultivated mind, but the
affinity for them existed in her. She felt it, and that an understanding of
it would be good for body and soul.
Another day she found a little grove of jack pines growing on a flat mesa-
like bluff, the highest point on her land. The trees were small and close
together, mingling their green needles overhead and their discarded brown
ones on the ground. From here Carley could see afar to all points of the
compass--the slow green descent to the south and the climb to the
black-timbered distance; the ridged and canyoned country to the west, red
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 The Talisman by Walter Scott: wasted on thee. Meantime do thou, good brother of Salisbury, go
to our consort's tent, and tell her that Blondel has arrived,
with his budget fraught with the newest minstrelsy. Bid her come
hither instantly, and do thou escort her, and see that our
cousin, Edith Plantagenet, remain not behind."
His eye then rested for a moment on the Nubian, with that
expression of doubtful meaning which his countenance usually
displayed when he looked at him.
"Ha, our silent and secret messenger returned?--Stand up, slave,
behind the back of De Neville, and thou shalt hear presently
sounds which will make thee bless God that He afflicted thee
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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 A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: offices needful and to visit the sick, as far as it was practicable; so
that, upon the whole, an allowance of charity might have been made
on both sides, and we should have considered that such a time as this
of 1665 is not to be paralleled in history, and that it is not the stoutest
courage that will always support men in such cases. I had not said
this, but had rather chosen to record the courage and religious zeal of
those of both sides, who did hazard themselves for the service of the
poor people in their distress, without remembering that any failed in
their duty on either side. But the want of temper among us has made
the contrary to this necessary: some that stayed not only boasting too
much of themselves, but reviling those that fled, branding them with
A Journal of the Plague Year |
