| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: mobility of matter he could not help recognizing that it possessed
qualities that were almost divine.
He was too old now to connect those phenomena to a system, and compare
them with those of sleep, of vision, of light. His whole scientific
belief, based on the assertions of the school of Locke and Condillac,
was in ruins. Seeing his hollow ideas in pieces, his scepticism
staggered. Thus the advantage in this struggle between the Catholic
child and the Voltairean old man was on Ursula's side. In the
dismantled fortress, above these ruins, shone a light; from the center
of these ashes issued the path of prayer! Nevertheless, the obstinate
old scientist fought his doubts. Though struck to the heart, he would
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Desert Gold by Zane Grey: knowledge of the desert, of the direction or whereabouts of the
boundary line between the republics; he did not know where to find
the railroad, or any road or trail, or whether or not there were
towns near or far. It was a critical, desperate situation. He
thought first of the girl, and groaned in spirit, prayed that it
would be given him to save her. When he remembered himself it was
with the stunning consciousness that he could conceive of no
situation which he would have exchanged for this one--where fortune
had set him a perilous task of loyalty to a friend, to a helpless
girl.
"Senor, senor!" suddenly whispered Mercedes, clinging to him.
Desert Gold |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Danny's Own Story by Don Marquis: make new Sagraw. And he had to get more and
more bottles, and a hull satchel full of new Sagraw
labels printed.
And all the time the doctor was learning me edu-
cation. And shucks! they wasn't nothing so hard
about it oncet you'd got started in to reading things.
I jest natcherally took to print like a duck to water,
and inside of a month I was reading nigh every-
thing that has ever been wrote. He had lots of
books with him and every time a new sockdologer
of a word come along and I learnt how to spell
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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 Coxon Fund by Henry James: Adelaide drove gently into London in a one-horse greenish thing, an
early Victorian landau, hired, near at hand, imaginatively, from a
broken-down jobmaster whose wife was in consumption--a vehicle that
made people turn round all the more when her pensioner sat beside
her in a soft white hat and a shawl, one of the dear woman's own.
This was his position and I dare say his costume when on an
afternoon in July she went to return Miss Anvoy's visit. The wheel
of fate had now revolved, and amid silences deep and exhaustive,
compunctions and condonations alike unutterable, Saltram was
reinstated. Was it in pride or in penance that Mrs. Mulville had
begun immediately to drive him about? If he was ashamed of his
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