| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Accumulate already in the air.
I think a touch of ermine, Hamilton,
Would be for you in your autumnal mood
A pleasant sort of warmth along the shoulders.
HAMILTON
If so it is you think, you may as well
Give over thinking. We are done with ermine.
What I fear most is not the multitude,
But those who are to loop it with a string
That has one end in France and one end here.
I'm not so fortified with observation
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: convulsed over the London Times is homesick.
She looked up from her Courier. He glanced away from his
Times. As the novelists have it, their eyes met. And there, in
each pair of eyes there swam that misty haze about which I had so
earnestly consulted Tony. The Green Plume took an involuntary step
forward. The Adam's Apple did the same. They spoke
simultaneously.
"They're going to pave Main Street," said the Green Plume,
"and Mrs. Wilcox, that was Jeri Meyers, has got another baby girl,
and the ladies of the First M. E. made seven dollars and sixty-nine
cents on their needle-work bazaar and missionary tea. I ain't been
Buttered Side Down |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: "Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken strange strondes."
Every sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire to go to
a West as distant and as fair as that into which the sun goes
down. He appears to migrate westward daily, and tempt us to
follow him. He is the Great Western Pioneer whom the nations
follow. We dream all night of those mountain-ridges in the
horizon, though they may be of vapor only, which were last gilded
by his rays. The island of Atlantis, and the islands and gardens
of the Hesperides, a sort of terrestrial paradise, appear to have
been the Great West of the ancients, enveloped in mystery and
Walking |
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 From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: The venturous Weymouth men went off, even before it was light, with
two boats to see who she was, and what condition she was in; and
found she was come to an anchor, and had struck her topmasts; but
that she had been in bad weather, had lost an anchor and cable
before, and had but one cable to trust to, which did hold her, but
was weak; and as the storm continued to blow, they expected every
hour to go on shore and split to pieces.
Upon this the Weymouth boats came back with such diligence that in
less than three hours they were on board them again with an anchor
and cable, which they immediately bent in its place, and let go to
assist the other, and thereby secured the ship. It is true that
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