| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: there, a familiar figure in blue, the very gown in which I always
thought of her, the one she had worn when, Heaven help me - I had
kissed her, at the Carter farm. And she was not alone. Bending
over her, talking earnestly, with all his boyish heart in his face,
was Richey.
They did not see me, and I was glad of it. After all, it had been
McKnight's game first. I turned on my heel and made my way blindly
out of the station. Before I lost them I turned once and looked
toward them, standing apart from the crowd, absorbed in each other.
They were the only two people on earth that I cared about, and I
left them there together. Then I went back miserably to the office
The Man in Lower Ten |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: sea itself grew desirable under such skies; and wherever the
trade-wind blows, I know no better country than a schooner's
deck.
But for the tugging anxiety as to the journey's end, the journey
itself must thus have counted for the best of holidays. My
physical well-being was over-proof; effects of sea and sky kept
me for ever busy with my pencil; and I had no lack of
intellectual exercise of a different order in the study of my
inconsistent friend, the captain. I call him friend, here on the
threshold; but that is to look well ahead. At first, I was too
much horrified by what I considered his barbarities, too much
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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 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: cold manner; but could not guess the reason, till I had a whisper
from a certain person, "that Flimnap and Bolgolam had represented
my intercourse with those ambassadors as a mark of disaffection;"
from which I am sure my heart was wholly free. And this was the
first time I began to conceive some imperfect idea of courts and
ministers.
It is to be observed, that these ambassadors spoke to me, by an
interpreter, the languages of both empires differing as much from
each other as any two in Europe, and each nation priding itself
upon the antiquity, beauty, and energy of their own tongue, with
an avowed contempt for that of their neighbour; yet our emperor,
Gulliver's Travels |
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 Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: that I should do.
I confess that on this occasion no small part of the corruptions
of Rome came to light; but, if there was any offence in this, it
was the fault of Eccius, who, in taking on him a burden beyond
his strength, and in furiously aiming at credit for himself,
unveiled to the whole world the disgrace of Rome.
Here is that enemy of yours, Leo, or rather of your Court; by his
example alone we may learn that an enemy is not more baneful than
a flatterer. For what did he bring about by his flattery, except
evils which no king could have brought about? At this day the
name of the Court of Rome stinks in the nostrils of the world,
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