| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey: savage war tale.
After breakfast Wetzel said to Joe:
"You stay here, an' I'll look round some; mebbe I'll come back soon, and we'll
go out an' kill a buffalo. Injuns sometimes foller up a buffalo trail, an' I
want to be sure none of the varlets are chasin' that herd we saw to-day."
Wetzel left the cave by the rear. It took him fifteen minutes to crawl to the
head of the tortuous, stony passage. Lifting the stone which closed up the
aperture, he looked out and listened. Then, rising, he replaced the stone, and
passed down the wooded hillside.
It was a beautiful morning; the dew glistened on the green leaves, the sun
shone bright and warm, the birds warbled in the trees. The hunter's moccasins
The Spirit of the Border |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum: not even turn his head to look at them.
"Good evening," said the Frogman.
The ferryman made no reply.
"We would like some supper and the privilege of sleeping in your house
until morning," continued the Frogman. "At daybreak, we would like
some breakfast, and then we would like to have you row us across the
river."
The ferryman neither moved nor spoke. He sat in his doorway and
looked straight ahead. "I think he must be deaf and dumb," Cayke
whispered to her companion. Then she stood directly in front of the
ferryman, and putting her mouth close to his ear, she yelled as loudly
The Lost Princess of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: romantic theories about you. "She has made a mere experiment in
marriage," I thought one evening, "and what is happiness for me had
proved only suffering to her. Her sacrifice is barren of reward, and
she would not make it greater than need be. The unctuous axioms of
social morality are only used to cloak her disappointment." Ah! Renee,
the best of happiness is that it needs no dogma and no fine words to
pave the way; it speaks for itself, while theory has been piled upon
theory to justify the system of women's vassalage and thralldom. If
self-denial be so noble, so sublime, what, pray, of my joy, sheltered
by the gold-and-white canopy of the church, and witnessed by the hand
and seal of the most sour-faced of mayors? Is it a thing out of
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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 Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: which, till this act of violence, lay slumbering on the crystal
surface, and I tried in vain to re-establish the picture which
had been so rudely broken. Well, then, I would try it another
way. I would try to get Christie Steele out of her PUBLIC, since
she was not striving in it, and she who had been my mother's
governante should be mine. I knew all her faults, and I told her
history over to myself.
She was grand-daughter, I believe--at least some relative--of the
famous Covenanter of the name, whom Dean Swift's friend, Captain
Creichton, shot on his own staircase in the times of the
persecutions; [See Note 2.--Steele a Covenanter, shot by Captain
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