| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: And never yet took port in creek or bay,
But fairly forward bore the knights her charge;
Now through the strait her jolly ship made way,
And boldly sailed upon the ocean large;
But if the sea in midst of earth was great,
Oh what was this, wherein earth hath her seat?
XXIV
Now deep engulphed in the mighty flood
They saw not Gades, nor the mountains near,
Fled was the land, and towns on land that stood,
Heaven covered sea, sea seemed the heavens to bear.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: escaping from a bed that was on fire. Yet these, perhaps, instead of
being the unsuppressable symptoms of some latent weakness, or fright
at his own resolve, were but the plainest tokens of its intensity.
For, at such times, crazy Ahab, the scheming, unappeasedly steadfast
hunter of the white whale; this Ahab that had gone to his hammock,
was not the agent that so caused him to burst from it in horror
again. The latter was the eternal, living principle or soul in him;
and in sleep, being for the time dissociated from the characterizing
mind, which at other times employed it for its outer vehicle or
agent, it spontaneously sought escape from the scorching contiguity
of the frantic thing, of which, for the time, it was no longer an
Moby Dick |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: had been gone since the Friday night before, and with the passage
of each day I felt that his chances were lessening. I knew well
enough that he might be carried thousands of miles in the box-
car, locked in, perhaps, without water or food. I had read of
cases where bodies had been found locked in cars on isolated
sidings in the west, and my spirits went down with every hour.
His recovery was destined to be almost as sudden as his
disappearance, and was due directly to the tramp Alex had brought
to Sunnyside. It seems the man was grateful for his release, and
when he learned some thing of Halsey's whereabouts from another
member of his fraternity--for it is a fraternity--he was prompt
The Circular Staircase |
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 Glinda of Oz by L. Frank Baum: spring. Dorothy stooped to get a drink and discovered
in the water a green crab, about as big as her hand.
The crab had two big, sharp claws, and as soon as
Dorothy saw them she had an idea that those claws could
save them.
"Come out of the water," she called to the crab; "I
want to talk to you."
Rather lazily the crab rose to the surface and caught
hold of a bit of rock. With his head above the water he
said in a cross voice:
"What do you want?"
Glinda of Oz |
