| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: A trade that touches nature, one that lies at the foundations of
life, in which we have all had ancestors employed, so that on a
hint of it ancestral memories revive, lends itself to literary use,
vocal or written. The fortune of a tale lies not alone in the
skill of him that writes, but as much, perhaps, in the inherited
experience of him who reads; and when I hear with a particular
thrill of things that I have never done or seen, it is one of that
innumerable army of my ancestors rejoicing in past deeds. Thus
novels begin to touch not the fine DILETTANTI but the gross mass of
mankind, when they leave off to speak of parlours and shades of
manner and still-born niceties of motive, and begin to deal with
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: O little, little we hearkened, dear,
And little, little cared,
Although the parson sermonised,
The congregation stared.
LOVE'S VICISSITUDES
AS Love and Hope together
Walk by me for a while,
Link-armed the ways they travel
For many a pleasant mile -
Link-armed and dumb they travel,
They sing not, but they smile.
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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 Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs: before, so he called me 'The Unabridged,' which was too long.
The fellows shortened it to 'Bridge' and it stuck. It has always
stuck, and now I haven't any other. I even think of myself,
now, as Bridge. Funny, ain't it?"
"Yes," agreed Billy, and that was the end of it. He never
thought of asking his companion's true name, any more than
Bridge would have questioned him as to his, or of his past.
The ethics of the roadside fire and the empty tomato tin do
not countenance such impertinences.
For several days the two continued their leisurely way
toward Kansas City. Once they rode a few miles on a freight
The Mucker |
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 Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: your orders."
XXI.
A STORM.
THE members of the household were all at the window about noon,
next day, watching the rise of a storm. A murky wing of cloud,
shaped like a hawk's, hung over the low western hills across
the bay. Then the hawk became an eagle, and the eagle a
gigantic phantom, that hovered over half the visible sky.
Beneath it, a little scud of vapor, moved by some cross-current
of air, raced rapidly against the wind, just above the horizon,
like smoke from a battle-field.
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