| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Young Forester by Zane Grey: the bear. But though fury lent me new strength, he kept the advantage.
Presently I saw the bottom of the canyon, an open glade, and an old
log-cabin. I looked back to see if the hunter was coming. He was not in
sight, but I fancied I heard him. Then Cubby, putting on extra steam, took
the remaining rods of the slope in another spurt. I had to race, then fly,
and at last lost my footing and plunged down into a thicket.
There farther progress stopped for both of us. Cubby had gone down on one
side of a sapling and I on the other, with the result that we were brought
up short. I crashed through some low bushes and bumped squarely into the
cub. Whether it was his frantic effort to escape, or just excitement, or
deliberate intention to beat me into a jelly I had no means to tell. The
The Young Forester |
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 At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: finery, and stepping out of a handsome carriage, had never been to see
her but when passing by. The wife of the prudent Lebas, imagining that
want of money was the prime cause of this early call, tried to keep up
a tone of reserve which more than once made Augustine smile. The
painter's wife perceived that, apart from the cap and lappets, her
mother had found in Virginie a successor who could uphold the ancient
honor of the Cat and Racket. At breakfast she observed certain changes
in the management of the house which did honor to Lebas' good sense;
the assistants did not rise before dessert; they were allowed to talk,
and the abundant meal spoke of ease without luxury. The fashionable
woman found some tickets for a box at the Francais, where she
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