| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: First National Bank of Chaparosa, and was elected its president.
One day a dyspeptic man, wearing double-magnifying glasses, inserted
an official-looking card between the bars of the cashier's window of
the First National Bank. Five minutes later the bank force was dancing
at the beck and call of a national bank examiner.
This examiner, Mr. J. Edgar Todd, proved to be a thorough one.
At the end of it all the examiner put on his hat, and called the
president, Mr. William R. Longley, into the private office.
"Well, how do you find things?" asked Longley, in his slow, deep
tones. "Any brands in the round-up you didn't like the looks of?"
"The bank checks up all right, Mr. Longley," said Todd; "and I find
Heart of the West |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: She thought she would take time to think of it; and, by the way of
gaining time, and in hopes of some indefinite moral virtues supposed
to be inherent in dark closets, Miss Ophelia shut Topsy up in one
till she had arranged her ideas further on the subject.
"I don't see," said Miss Ophelia to St. Clare, "how I'm
going to manage that child, without whipping her."
"Well, whip her, then, to your heart's content; I'll give
you full power to do what you like."
"Children always have to be whipped," said Miss Ophelia;
"I never heard of bringing them up without."
"O, well, certainly," said St. Clare; "do as you think best.
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: seized by his guards and chastised with the whip. The ancestral
instincts of command and discipline are showing early in the lad.
The young gentleman complains to his father, the father to the old
king, who of course sends for the herdsman and his boy. The boy
answers in a tone so exactly like that in which Xenophon's Cyrus
would have answered, that I must believe that both Xenophon's Cyrus
and Herodotus's Cyrus (like Xenophon's Socrates and Plato's
Socrates) are real pictures of a real character; and that
Herodotus's story, though Xenophon says nothing of it, is true.
He has done nothing, the noble boy says, but what was just. He had
been chosen king in play, because the boys thought him most fit.
|
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 O Pioneers! by Willa Cather: for my feet, I have observed your wishes all
these years, though you have never questioned
me; washing them every night, even in winter."
Alexandra laughed. "Oh, never mind about
your feet, Ivar. We can remember when half
our neighbors went barefoot in summer. I ex-
pect old Mrs. Lee would love to slip her shoes
off now sometimes, if she dared. I'm glad I'm
not Lou's mother-in-law."
O Pioneers! |
