| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Master of the World by Jules Verne: believe it possible that the Great Eyrie can be a volcano; the
Alleghanies are nowhere of volcanic origins I, myself, in our
immediate district, have never found any geological traces of scoria,
or lava, or any eruptive rock whatever. I do not think, therefore,
that Morganton can possibly be threatened from such a source."
"You really think not, Mr. Smith?"
"Certainly."
"But these tremblings of the earth that have been felt in the
neighborhood!"
"Yes these tremblings! These tremblings!" repeated Mr. Smith, shaking
his head;" but in the first place, is it certain that there have been
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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 Young Forester by Zane Grey: But below the fork it was harder for Cubby and easier for me. The branches
rather hindered his backward progress while they aided mine. Growling and
whining, with long claws ripping the bark, he went down. All of a sudden I
became aware of the old hunter threshing about under the tree.
"Hold on--not so fast!" he yelled.
Still the cub kept going, and stopped with his haunches on the first
branch. There, looking down, he saw an enemy below him, and hesitated. But
he looked up, and, seeing me, began to back down again. Hiram pounded the
tree with a dead branch. Cubby evidently intended to reach the ground, for
the noise did not stop him. Then the hunter ran a little way to a windfall,
and came back with the upper half of a dead sapling. With this he began to
The Young Forester |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: trade, visited the family as usual. He was now full of speculations
in trade, and his brow became clouded by care. He seemed to relax
in his attention to me, when the presence of my uncle gave a new
turn to his behaviour. I was too unsuspecting, too disinterested,
to trace these changes to their source.
My home every day became more and more disagreeable to me; my
liberty was unnecessarily abridged, and my books, on the pretext
that they made me idle, taken from me. My father's mistress was
with child, and he, doating on her, allowed or overlooked her vulgar
manner of tyrannizing over us. I was indignant, especially when I
saw her endeavouring to attract, shall I say seduce? my younger
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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 Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: hills. This was Villon's Siberia. It would be a little warm
in summer perhaps, and a little cold in winter in that
draughty valley between two great mountain fields; but what
with the hills, and the racing river, and the fiery Rhone
wines, he was little to be pitied on the conditions of his
exile. Villon, in a remarkably bad ballad, written in a
breath, heartily thanked and fulsomely belauded the
Parliament; the ENVOI, like the proverbial postscript of a
lady's letter, containing the pith of his performance in a
request for three days' delay to settle his affairs and bid
his friends farewell. He was probably not followed out of
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