| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: They'd never, never forgive you. It's no use. You've got to let
me go! you've GOT to!"
"Listen, Polly." He drew her toward him. "God is greater than
any church or creed. There's work to be done EVERYWHERE--HIS
work."
"You'll soon find out about that," thundered Strong.
"So I will," answered Douglas, with his head thrown high. "This
child has opened a new world to me; she has shown me a broader,
deeper humanity; she and I will find the way together."
"It won't be an easy one, I'll promise you that." Strong turned
to go.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: you, Metrodorus, advise me to in this affair?" In return to which,
either out of good-will to Tigranes, or a want of solicitude for
Mithridates, he made answer, that as ambassador he counseled him to
it, but as a friend dissuaded him from it. This Tigranes reported,
and affirmed to Mithridates, thinking that no irreparable harm
would come of it to Metrodorus. But upon this he was presently
taken off, and Tigranes was sorry for what he had done, though he
had not, indeed, been absolutely the cause of his death; yet he had
given the fatal turn to the anger of Mithridates, who had privately
hated him before, as appeared from his cabinet papers when taken,
among which there was an order that Metrodorus should die.
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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 Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey: clenched fist toward the west, he resembled a magnificent statue of dark
menace.
With a single bound he cleared the pool, and then sped out of the glade. He
urged the dog on Girty's trail, and followed the eager beast toward the west.
As he disappeared, a long, low sound like the sigh of the night wind swelled
and moaned through the gloom.
Chapter XXIV.
When the first ruddy rays of the rising sun crimsoned the eastern sky, Wetzel
slowly wound his way down a rugged hill far west of Beautiful Spring. A white
dog, weary and footsore, limped by his side. Both man and beast showed
evidence of severe exertion.
The Spirit of the Border |
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 De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: coronation ceremony of sorrow, one of the most wonderful things in
the whole of recorded time; the crucifixion of the Innocent One
before the eyes of his mother and of the disciple whom he loved;
the soldiers gambling and throwing dice for his clothes; the
terrible death by which he gave the world its most eternal symbol;
and his final burial in the tomb of the rich man, his body swathed
in Egyptian linen with costly spices and perfumes as though he had
been a king's son. When one contemplates all this from the point
of view of art alone one cannot but be grateful that the supreme
office of the Church should be the playing of the tragedy without
the shedding of blood: the mystical presentation, by means of
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