| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: bullet, and Mongrel and Blake Haskins's horse were doing the work.
Buffalo Bill and Thorndike had lolled both of those toughs.
"When they got to us, and Buffalo Bill saw the child lying there so
white, he said, 'My God!' and the sound of his voice brought her to
herself, and she gave a little cry of pleasure and struggled to get
up, but couldn't, and the soldiers gathered her up like the
tenderest women, and their eyes were wet and they were not ashamed,
when they saw her arm dangling; and so were Buffalo Bill's, and
when they laid her in his arms he said, 'My darling, how does this
come?' and she said, 'We came to save you, but I was tired, and
couldn't keep awake, and fell off and hurt myself, and couldn't get
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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 Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: Desroches, understood the full resources of a trade carried on in a
beggarly way enough by poor devils; he would buy up causes of men who
feared to lose the day; he plunged into chicanery with a fixed
determination to make money by it. He was right; he did his business
very honestly. He found influence among men in public life by getting
them out of awkward complications; there was our dear les Lupeaulx,
for instance, whose position was so deeply compromised. And Desroches
stood in need of influence; for when he began, he was anything but
well looked on at the court, and he who took so much trouble to
rectify the errors of his clients was often in trouble himself. See
now, Bixiou, to go back to the subject--How came Desroches to be in
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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 Love Songs by Sara Teasdale: All black and blossomless this winter night,
But we bring April with us, you and I;
We set the whole world on the trail of spring.
I think that every path we ever took
Has marked our footprints in mysterious fire,
Delicate gold that only fairies see.
When they wake up at dawn in hollow tree-trunks
And come out on the drowsy park, they look
Along the empty paths and say, "Oh, here
They went, and here, and here, and here! Come, see,
Here is their bench, take hands and let us dance
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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 The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: somewhere that way would have Captain Giles on
board, either in temporary command or "to assist
the master." It was said that he had a retaining
fee from a wealthy firm of Chinese steamship
owners, in view of such services. Besides, he was
always ready to relieve any man who wished to
take a spell ashore for a time. No owner was ever
known to object to an arrangement of that sort.
For it seemed to be the established opinion at the
port that Captain Giles was as good as the best, if
not a little better. But in Hamilton's view he was
The Shadow Line |
