| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: as on the face and hands, or as severe manual labor robs the
hands of some of their delicacy of touch. So staying in the
house, on the other hand, may produce a softness and smoothness,
not to say thinness of skin, accompanied by an increased
sensibility to certain impressions. Perhaps we should be more
susceptible to some influences important to our intellectual and
moral growth, if the sun had shone and the wind blown on us a
little less; and no doubt it is a nice matter to proportion
rightly the thick and thin skin. But methinks that is a scurf
that will fall off fast enough--that the natural remedy is to be
found in the proportion which the night bears to the day, the
Walking |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: they were deadly enemies, for only so can the several races
maintain their individuality.
"Will the Kro-lu join him?" asked Ajor. "Will they invade the
country of Jor my father?"
"The younger Kro-lu favor the plan," replied the warrior,
"since they believe they will thus become Galus immediately.
They hope to span the long years of change through which they
must pass in the ordinary course of events and at a single
stride become Galus. We of the older Kro-lu tell them that
though they occupy the land of the Galu and wear the skins and
ornaments of the golden people, still they will not be Galus
The People That Time Forgot |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Danny's Own Story by Don Marquis: and when he was a young feller never liked to work
at nothing else. It suited him. Colonel Tom,
he was considerable like him in that way. So they
was good pals when they was to that school together.
They both quit about the same time. A couple
of years after that, when they was both about
twenty-five or six years old, they run acrost each
other accidental in New York one autumn.
The doctor, he was there figgering on going to
work at something or other, but they was so many
things to do he was finding it hard to make a choice.
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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 Cratylus by Plato: countries,--like the glacier, too, containing within them a trickling
stream which deposits debris of the rocks over which it passes. There were
happy moments, as we may conjecture, in the lives of nations, at which they
came to the birth--as in the golden age of literature, the man and the time
seem to conspire; the eloquence of the bard or chief, as in later times the
creations of the great writer who is the expression of his age, became
impressed on the minds of their countrymen, perhaps in the hour of some
crisis of national development--a migration, a conquest, or the like. The
picture of the word which was beginning to be lost, is now revived; the
sound again echoes to the sense; men find themselves capable not only of
expressing more feelings, and describing more objects, but of expressing
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