| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: Roxana was twenty years old. She was up and around the same day,
with her hands full, for she was tending both babes.
Mrs. Percy Driscoll died within the week. Roxy remained in charge of
the children. She had her own way, for Mr. Driscoll soon absorbed himself
in his speculations and left her to her own devices.
In that same month of February, Dawson's Landing gained a new citizen.
This was Mr. David Wilson, a young fellow of Scotch parentage.
He had wandered to this remote region from his birthplace in the interior
of the State of New York, to seek his fortune. He was twenty-five years old,
college bred, and had finished a post-college course in an Eastern
law school a couple of years before.
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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 Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: nor there; I see further, he has no conscience. You can go about
the whole day and not meet one man with a conscience. And the
whole reason is that they don't know whether there is a God or
not. . . . Well, good-bye, mamma, keep alive and well, don't
remember evil against me."
Anisim bowed down at Varvara's feet.
"I thank you for everything, mamma," he said. "You are a great
gain to our family. You are a very ladylike woman, and I am very
pleased with you."
Much moved, Anisim went out, but returned again and said:
"Samorodov has got me mixed up in something: I shall either make
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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 The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: its silent party of richly trapped men and women, with here and
there a child or two, but even the children maintained the
uniform silence and immobility of their elders. As they
approached the center of the city the girl saw that even the
roofs bore companies of these idle watchers, harnessed and
bejeweled as for some gala-day of laughter and music, but no
laughter broke from those silent lips, nor any music from the
strings of the instruments that many of them held in jeweled
fingers.
And now the avenue widened into an immense square, at the far end
of which rose a stately edifice gleaming white in virgin marble
The Chessmen of Mars |
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 Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: Not but that many useful things might be learned by that book, but he
was laughed at because that art was not to be taught by words, but
practice: and so must Angling. And note also, that in this Discourse I do
not undertake to say all that is known, or may be said of it, but I
undertake to acquaint the Reader with many things that are not usually
known to every Angler; and I shall leave gleanings and observations
enough to be made out of the experience of all that love and practice
this recreation, to which I shall encourage them. For Angling may be
said to be so like the Mathematicks, that it can never be fully learnt; at
least not so fully, but that there will still be more new experiments left
for the trial of other men that succeed us.
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