| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: turned about, knife in hand, debating what next he should do, a
figure burst down upon him, shadowy and distorted through the
haze.
It was Moran, but Moran as Wilbur had never seen her before. Her
eyes were blazing under her thick frown like fire under a bush.
Her arms were bared to the elbow, her heavy ropes of hair flying
and coiling from her in all directions, while with a voice hoarse
from shouting she sang, or rather chanted, in her long-forgotten
Norse tongue, fragments of old sagas, words, and sentences,
meaningless even to herself. The fury of battle had exalted her
to a sort of frenzy. She was beside herself with excitement.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare: By the proportion of her mightiness.
Write on, while I peruse her in my thoughts.--
Her voice to music or the nightingale--
To music every summer leaping swain
Compares his sunburnt lover when she speaks;
And why should I speak of the nightingale?
The nightingale sings of adulterate wrong,
And that, compared, is too satyrical;
For sin, though sin, would not be so esteemed,
But, rather, virtue sin, sin virtue deemed.
Her hair, far softer than the silk worm's twist,
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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 Just Folks by Edgar A. Guest: It put three fingers out of joint,
And father let it go.
He stopped a grounder with his face;
Was spiked, nor was that all;
It looked to us like suicide,
When father played baseball.
At last he limped away, and now
He suffers in disgrace;
His arms are bathed in liniment;
Court plaster hides his face.
He says his back is breaking, and
Just Folks |
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 King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: he raised the flask he saw a little child lying panting by the
roadside, and it cried out piteously for water. Then Gluck
struggled with himself and determined to bear the thirst a little
longer; and he put the bottle to the child's lips, and it drank
it all but a few drops. Then it smiled on him and got up and ran
down the hill; and Gluck looked after it till it became as small
as a little star, and then turned and began climbing again. And
then there were all kinds of sweet flowers growing on the rocks--
bright green moss with pale pink, starry flowers, and soft belled
gentians, more blue than the sky at its deepest, and pure white
transparent lilies. And crimson and purple butterflies darted
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