| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: was only to plunge to the opposite side of the road into a
thicket of brambles and alder-bushes. The schoolmaster now
bestowed both whip and heel upon the starveling ribs of old
Gunpowder, who dashed forward, snuffling and snorting, but came
to a stand just by the bridge, with a suddenness that had nearly
sent his rider sprawling over his head. Just at this moment a
plashy tramp by the side of the bridge caught the sensitive ear
of Ichabod. In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the
brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen and towering. It
stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some
gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveller.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: we turn and flee out of the place. On the pavement we smite our foot, and
swear in our child's soul never again to enter those places where men come
to sing and pray. We are questioned afterward. Why was it we went out of
the church.
How can we explain?--we stand silent. Then we are pressed further, and we
try to tell. Then a head is shaken solemnly at us. No one can think it
wrong to go to the house of the Lord; it is the idle excuse of a wicked
boy. When will we think seriously of our souls, and love going to church?
We are wicked, very wicked. And we--we slink away and go alone to cry.
Will it be always so? Whether we hate and doubt, or whether we believe and
love, to our dearest, are we to seem always wicked?
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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 Art of War by Sun Tzu: the rebel Huan Hsuan up the Yangtsze and fought a naval battle
with him at the island of Ch`eng-hung. The loyal troops numbered
only a few thousands, while their opponents were in great force.
But Huan Hsuan, fearing the fate which was in store for him
should be be overcome, had a light boat made fast to the side of
his war-junk, so that he might escape, if necessary, at a
moment's notice. The natural result was that the fighting spirit
of his soldiers was utterly quenched, and when the loyalists made
an attack from windward with fireships, all striving with the
utmost ardor to be first in the fray, Huan Hsuan's forces were
routed, had to burn all their baggage and fled for two days and
The Art of War |
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 Bucky O'Connor by William MacLeod Raine: one man ever did another. Back in the old days he and I used to
trail together. We was awful thick, and mostly hunted in couples.
We began riding the same season back on the old Kittredge Ranch,
and we went in together for all the kinds of spreeing that young
fellows who are footloose are likely to do. Fact is, we suited
each other from the ground up. We frolicked round a-plenty, like
young colts will, and there was nothing on this green earth Dave
could have asked from me that I wouldn't have done for him.
Nothing except one, I reckon, and Dave never asked that of me."
Mackenzie puffed at his cigar a silent moment before resuming.
"It happened we both fell in love with the same girl, little
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