| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: the sage-brush, and the time at hand when the Virginian and
Trampas would be "man to man," my thoughts rose to a considerable
pitch of speculation.
And now that talking part of the Virginian, which had been nine
days asleep, gave its first yawn and stretch of waking. Without
preface, he suddenly asked me, "Would you be a parson?"
I was mentally so far away that I couldn't get back in time to
comprehend or answer before he had repeated:"What would yu' take
to be a parson?"
He drawled it out in his gentle way, precisely as if no nine days
stood between it and our last real intercourse.
The Virginian |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: had to do with a crafty and alert antagonist, prompt at
supplying, upon all emergencies, evasions and excuses suitable,
as he thought, to the dignity of the family.
"Praise be blest!" said Caleb to himself, "ae leaf of the muckle
gate has been swung to wi' yestreen's wind, and I think I can
manage to shut the ither."
But he was desirous, like a prudent governor, at the same time
to get rid, if possible, of the internal enemy, in which light he
considered almost every one who eat and drank, ere he took
measures to exclude those whom their jocund noise now pronounced
to be near at hand. He waited, therefore, with impatience until
The Bride of Lammermoor |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: Muller took a chair and sat down directly in front of the pool of
blood, looking at it carefully. Suddenly he bowed his head deeper.
He had caught sight of a fine thread of the red fluid which had
been drawn out for about a foot or two in the direction towards
the door to the dining-room. What did that mean? Did it mean that
the murderer went out through that door, dragging something after
him that made this delicate line? Muller bent down still deeper.
The sun shone brightly on the floor, sending its clear rays
obliquely through the window. The sharp eyes which now covered
every inch of the yellow-painted floor discovered something else.
They discovered that this red thread curved slightly and had a
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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 Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: "Of the various conditions which the world spreads before you which
you shall prefer," said the sage, "I am not able to instruct you.
I can only tell that I have chosen wrong. I have passed my time in
study without experience - in the attainment of sciences which can
for the most part be but remotely useful to mankind. I have
purchased knowledge at the expense of all the common comforts of
life; I have missed the endearing elegance of female friendship,
and the happy commerce of domestic tenderness. If I have obtained
any prerogatives above other students, they have been accompanied
with fear, disquiet, and scrupulosity; but even of these
prerogatives, whatever they were, I have, since my thoughts have
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