| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs: "So long, boes!" he cried, and with a wave of his hand
wheeled about and spurred back along the trail over which
they had just come.
Miguel and Bridge watched him for a moment, then they,
too, mounted and turned away in the opposite direction.
Bridge recited no verse for the balance of that day. His heart
lay heavy in his bosom, for he missed Billy Byrne, and was
fearful of the fate which awaited him at the camp of the
bandit.
Billy, blithe as a lark, rode gaily back along the trail to
camp. He looked forward with unmixed delight to his coming
The Mucker |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling: friends, for Mr Springett was so old he could remember when
railways were being made in the southern counties of England,
and people were allowed to drive dogs in carts.
One hot, still afternoon - the tar-paper on the roof smelt like
ships - Dan, in his shirt-sleeves, was smoothing down a new
schooner's bow, and Mr Springett was talking of barns and
houses he had built. He said he never forgot any stick or stone he
had ever handled, or any man, woman, or child he had ever met.
just then he was very proud of the Village Hall at the entrance of
the village, which he had finished a few weeks before.
'An' I don't mind tellin' you, Mus' Dan,' he said, 'that the Hall
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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 Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: Of her deep yearning for love, she never spoke. Just when she
would begin to feel almost self-sufficient it would quicken to a
throbbing ache. Usually, at such times, she buried it
determinedly under work. But one day, yielding to an impulse, she
wrote to Norah asking if her little namesake could come for a
month's visit.
"I know she is only seven," the letter ran, "but I am sure if she
were put in care of the conductor she would come through safely,
and I do so want to see her." After long hesitation, she enclosed
a check to cover expenses. She was half frightened by her own
daring and did not tell Martin until she had received the reply
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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 Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: of light." "Knowest thou how the bones grow in the womb?" asks the
Jewish sage, sadly, half self-reprovingly, as he discovers that man
is not the measure of all things, and that in much learning may be
vanity and vexation of spirit, and in much study a weariness of the
flesh; and all our deeper physical science only brings the same
question more awfully near. "Vilior algƒ," more worthless than the
very sea-weed, says the old Roman: and yet no torn scrap of that
very sea-weed, which to-morrow may manure the nearest garden, but
says to us, "Proud man! talking of spores and vesicles, if thou
darest for a moment to fancy that to have seen spores and vesicles
is to have seen me, or to know what I am, answer this. Knowest
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