| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rivers to the Sea by Sara Teasdale: Happy again when it has left them rest.
Others shall say, "Grave Dica wrought her death.
She would not lift her lips to take a kiss,
Or ever lift her eyes to take a smile.
She was a pool the winter paves with ice
That the wild hunter in the hills must leave
With thirst unslaked in the brief southward sun."
RIVERS TO THE SEA
Ah Dica, it is not for thee I go;
And not for Phaon, tho' his ship lifts sail
Here in the windless harbor for the south.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: of adventurers. The idea, the word itself, wore a romantic horror
for him - he had always lived on such safe lines. Later it assumed
a more interesting, almost a soothing, sense: it pointed a moral,
and Pemberton could enjoy a moral. The Moreens were adventurers
not merely because they didn't pay their debts, because they lived
on society, but because their whole view of life, dim and confused
and instinctive, like that of clever colour-blind animals, was
speculative and rapacious and mean. Oh they were "respectable,"
and that only made them more immondes. The young man's analysis,
while he brooded, put it at last very simply - they were
adventurers because they were toadies and snobs. That was the
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: time after.
Whoever shall read these memorandums must be desired to consider
that visits at sea are not like a journey into the country, where
sometimes people stay a week or a fortnight at a place. Our
business was to relieve this distressed ship's crew, but not lie by
for them; and though they were willing to steer the same course
with us for some days, yet we could carry no sail to keep pace with
a ship that had no masts. However, as their captain begged of us
to help him to set up a main-topmast, and a kind of a topmast to
his jury fore-mast, we did, as it were, lie by him for three or
four days; and then, having given him five barrels of beef, a
Robinson Crusoe |
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 Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs: their conversation.
"They cannot have treated you very badly, Larry," she said.
"You are as well groomed and well fed, apparently, as ever."
A slight flush mounting to the man's face made the girl
wonder a bit though it aroused no suspicion in her mind.
"Oh, no," he hastened to assure her, "they have not treated
me at all badly--why should they? If I die they can collect no
ransom on me. It is the same with you, Barbara, so I think
you need apprehend no harsh treatment."
"I hope you are right, Larry," she said, but the hopelessness
of her air rather belied any belief that aught but harm could
The Mucker |
