| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: was home. Next to startle her was the dark tunnel, and then the slowing of
the train to a stop. As she walked behind a porter up the long incline
toward the station gate her legs seemed to be dead.
In the circle of expectant faces beyond the gate she saw her aunt's, eager
and agitated, then the handsome pale face of Eleanor Harmon, and beside her
the sweet thin one of Beatrice Lovell. As they saw her how quick the change
from expectancy to joy! It seemed they all rushed upon her, and embraced
her, and exclaimed over her together. Carley never recalled what she said.
But her heart was full.
"Oh, how perfectly stunning you look!" cried Eleanor, backing away from
Carley and gazing with glad, surprised eyes.
The Call of the Canyon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: up or down the channel. Except the Pride of Banya, lying out beyond
a lump of rocks towards the line of the sea.
"Not a human being in sight," he repeated, and paused.
"I don't know where they came from, not a bit. And we were feeling
so safe that we were all alone that poor young Sanders was a-singing.
I was in Jimmy Goggles, all except the helmet. 'Easy,' says Always,
'there's her mast.' And after I'd had just one squint over the gunwale,
I caught up the bogey and almost tipped out as old Sanders brought
the boat round. When the windows were screwed and everything was
all right, I shut the valve from the air belt in order to help
my sinking, and jumped overboard, feet foremost--for we hadn't
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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 Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: "He has gone, the dear love," cried the old gambler; "but it shall all
be his; he pays his own money."
Unhappily, Joseph did not know the way to any of the lottery-offices,
which in those days were as well known to most people as the
cigarshops to a smoker in ours. The painter ran along, reading the
street names upon the lamps. When he asked the passers-by to show him
a lottery-office, he was told they were all closed, except the one
under the portico of the Palais-Royal which was sometimes kept open a
little later. He flew to the Palais-Royal: the office was shut.
"Two minutes earlier, and you might have paid your stake," said one of
the vendors of tickets, whose beat was under the portico, where he
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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 Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: considerable powers of movement, by means of a short neck
In one zoophyte the head itself was fixed, but the lower ja
free: in another it was replaced by a triangular hood, with
beautifully-fitted trap-door, which evidently answered to th
lower mandible. In the greater number of species, each cel
was provided with one head, but in others each cell had two.
The young cells at the end of the branches of these corallines
contain quite immature polypi, yet the vulture-head
attached to them, though small, are in every respect perfect
When the polypus was removed by a needle from any of th
cells, these organs did not appear in the least affected. Whe
The Voyage of the Beagle |
