| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: her husband conceded, anxious to have it understood
that he was no frivolous globe-trotter.
And at this point the ladies went up to the drawing-
room.
In the library, in spite of weightier presences, Lawrence
Lefferts predominated.
The talk, as usual, had veered around to the Beauforts,
and even Mr. van der Luyden and Mr. Selfridge
Merry, installed in the honorary arm-chairs tacitly
reserved for them, paused to listen to the younger man's
philippic.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Heap O' Livin' by Edgar A. Guest: THE JUNE COUPLE
She is fair to see and sweet,
Dainty from her head to feet,
Modest, as her blushing shows,
Happy, as her smiles disclose,
And the young man at her side
Nervously attempts to hide
Underneath a visage grim
That the fuss is bothering him.
Pause a moment, happy pair!
This is not the station where
A Heap O' Livin' |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: growing too monotonous, and you will get some faint notion of the
Clackamas. The weir had been erected to pen the Chenook salmon
from going further up-stream. We could see them, twenty or thirty
pounds, by the score in the deep pools, or flying madly against
the weir and foolishly skinning their noses. They were not our
prey, for they would not rise at a fly, and we knew it. All the
same, when one made his leap against the weir, and landed on the
foot-plank with a jar that shook the board I was standing on, I
would fain have claimed him for my own capture.
Portland had no rod. He held the gaff and the whiskey.
California sniffed up-stream and down-stream, across the racing
|
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 Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey: beside Lynn. He was eager to ask questions; to know about the rafts, the
river, the forest, the Indians--everything in connection with this wild life;
but already he had learned that questioning these frontiersmen is a sure means
of closing their lips.
"Ever handle the long rifle?" asked Lynn, after a silence.
"Yes," answered Joe, simply.
"Ever shoot anythin'?" the frontiersman questioned, when he had taken four or
five puffs at his pipe.
"Squirrels."
"Good practice, shootin' squirrels," observed Jeff, after another silence,
long enough to allow Joe to talk if he was so inclined. "Kin ye hit one--say,
The Spirit of the Border |
