| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Desert Gold by Zane Grey: watching at the window. When the row starts those fellows out
there in the plaza will run into the saloon. Then you slip out,
go straight through the plaza down the street. It's a dark street,
I remember. I'll catch up with you before you get far."
Thorne gasped, but did not say a word. Mercedes leaned against
him, her white hands now at her breast, her great eyes watching
Gale as he went out.
In the corridor Gale stopped long enough to pull on a pair of heavy
gloves, to muss his hair, and disarrange his collar. Then he stepped
into the restaurant, went through, and halted in the door leading
into the saloon. His five feet eleven inches and one hundred and
Desert Gold |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: in high favor for twenty-four years. Yet his death was not an
event. It made no stir, it attracted no attention. Apparently
his eminent literary contemporaries did not realize that a
celebrated poet had passed from their midst. Perhaps they knew a
play-actor of minor rank had disappeared, but did not regard him
as the author of his Works. "We are justified in assuming" this.
His death was not even an event in the little town of
Stratford. Does this mean that in Stratford he was not regarded
as a celebrity of ANY kind?
"We are privileged to assume"--no, we are indeed OBLIGED to
assume--that such was the case. He had spent the first twenty-
What is Man? |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: Waving with box, Narycian groves of pitch;
Oh! blithe the sight of fields beholden not
To rake or man's endeavour! the barren woods
That crown the scalp of Caucasus, even these,
Which furious blasts for ever rive and rend,
Yield various wealth, pine-logs that serve for ships,
Cedar and cypress for the homes of men;
Hence, too, the farmers shave their wheel-spokes, hence
Drums for their wains, and curved boat-keels fit;
Willows bear twigs enow, the elm-tree leaves,
Myrtle stout spear-shafts, war-tried cornel too;
Georgics |
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 Call of the Wild by Jack London: thin Manila rope from tree to tree, while Thornton remained in the
boat, helping its descent by means of a pole, and shouting
directions to the shore. Buck, on the bank, worried and anxious,
kept abreast of the boat, his eyes never off his master.
At a particularly bad spot, where a ledge of barely submerged
rocks jutted out into the river, Hans cast off the rope, and,
while Thornton poled the boat out into the stream, ran down the
bank with the end in his hand to snub the boat when it had cleared
the ledge. This it did, and was flying down-stream in a current
as swift as a mill-race, when Hans checked it with the rope and
checked too suddenly. The boat flirted over and snubbed in to the
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