| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: a leather buckle, an ancient band-concert program, scraps
of ribbon, lace, satin. In the aisle beside her is an extremely
indignant parrakeet in a cage.
Two facing seats, overflowing with a Slovene iron-miner's
family, are littered with shoes, dolls, whisky bottles, bundles
wrapped in newspapers, a sewing bag. The oldest boy takes
a mouth-organ out of his coat pocket, wipes the tobacco
crumbs off, and plays "Marching through Georgia" till every
head in the car begins to ache.
The news-butcher comes through selling chocolate bars and
lemon drops. A girl-child ceaselessly trots down to the water-
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: Balaga! You'll get there in time? Eh?"
"That depends on our luck in starting, else why shouldn't we be
there in time?" replied Balaga. "Didn't we get you to Tver in seven
hours? I think you remember that, your excellency?"
"Do you know, one Christmas I drove from Tver," said Anatole,
smilingly at the recollection and turning to Makarin who gazed
rapturously at him with wide-open eyes. "Will you believe it, Makarka,
it took one's breath away, the rate we flew. We came across a train of
loaded sleighs and drove right over two of them. Eh?"
"Those were horses!" Balaga continued the tale. "That time I'd
harnessed two young side horses with the bay in the shafts," he went
War and Peace |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: the feat of a juggler, without interest in the outcome. What
splendid effort! -- what magnificent, what superhuman
strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor! Bravo! The cord
fell away; his arms parted and floated upward, the hands
dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched
them with a new interest as first one and then the other
pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore it away and
thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations resembling those of
a water snake. "Put it back, put it back!" He thought he
shouted these words to his hands, for the undoing of the
noose had been succeeded by the direst pang that he had yet
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
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 Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: "She was one of the old stock," continued Captain Littlepage,
with touching sincerity. "She was very much looked up to in this
town, and will be missed."
I wondered, as I looked at him, if he had sprung from a line
of ministers; he had the refinement of look and air of command
which are the heritage of the old ecclesiastical families of New
England. But as Darwin says in his autobiography, "there is no
such king as a sea-captain; he is greater even than a king or a
schoolmaster!"
Captain Littlepage moved his chair out of the wake of the
sunshine, and still sat looking at me. I began to be very eager to
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