| 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: by a breeze from the open door:
"All this profit-sharing and welfare work and insurance and
old-age pension is simply poppycock. Enfeebles a workman's
independence--and wastes a lot of honest profit. The half-
baked thinker that isn't dry behind the ears yet, and these
suffragettes and God knows what all buttinskis there are that
are trying to tell a business man how to run his business, and
some of these college professors are just about as bad, the
whole kit and bilin' of 'em are nothing in God's world but
socialism in disguise! And it's my bounden duty as a pro-
ducer to resist every attack on the integrity of American
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott: So up and down the green hill-sides went her little feet; long she
searched and vainly she called; but still no Fairy came. Then
by the river-side she went, and asked the gay dragon-flies, and the
cool white lilies, if the Fairy had been there; but the blue waves
rippled on the white sand at her feet, and no voice answered her.
Then into the forest little Annie went; and as she passed along the
dim, cool paths, the wood-flowers smiled up in her face, gay squirrels
peeped at her, as they swung amid the vines, and doves cooed softly
as she wandered by; but none could answer her. So, weary with
her long and useless search, she sat amid the ferns, and feasted
on the rosy strawberries that grew beside her, watching meanwhile
Flower Fables |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: and the recitation in concert of the Lord's Prayer, also in Samoan.
Many of these hymns were set to ancient tunes, very wild and
warlike, and strangely at variance with the missionary words.
Sometimes a passing band of hostile warriors, with blackened faces,
would peer in at us through the open windows, and often we were
forced to pause until the strangely savage, monotonous noise of the
native drums had ceased; but no Samoan, nor, I trust, white person,
changed his reverent attitude. Once, I remember a look of
surprised dismay crossing the countenance of Tusitala when my son,
contrary to his usual custom of reading the next chapter following
that of yesterday, turned back the leaves of his Bible to find a
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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 A Princess of Parms by Edgar Rice Burroughs: were never spoken, as just then a young warrior, evidently
sensing the trend of thought among the older men, leaped
down from the steps of the rostrum, and striking the frail
captive a powerful blow across the face, which felled her to
the floor, placed his foot upon her prostrate form and turning
toward the assembled council broke into peals of horrid,
mirthless laughter.
For an instant I thought Tars Tarkas would strike him
dead, nor did the aspect of Lorquas Ptomel augur any too
favorably for the brute, but the mood passed, their old selves
reasserted their ascendency, and they smiled. It was portentous
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