| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: would be their "pardner" and stirrup-brother, foot to foot.
When the fooling was ended all hands made a raid on Joe's big coffee-
pot by the fire for a Java nightcap. Ranse watched the new knight
carefully to see if he understood and was worthy. Curly limped with
his cup of coffee to a log and sat upon it. Long Collins followed and
sat by his side. Buck Rabb went and sat at the other. Curly--grinned.
And then Ranse furnished Curly with mounts and saddle and equipment,
and turned him over to Buck Rabb, instructing him to finish the job.
Three weeks later Ranse rode from the ranch into Rabb's camp, which
was then in Snake Valley. The boys were saddling for the day's ride.
He sought out Long Collins among them.
Heart of the West |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: hundred, maybe, copies. How many cattle, think you,
would the Bishop of Tours give for that tale? Or thy
brother? Or the Monks of Blois? Minstrels will turn it into
songs which thy own Saxon serfs shall sing behind their
plough-stilts, and men-at-arms riding through thy Norman
towns. From here to Rome, Fulke, men will make
very merry over that tale, and how Fulke told it, hanging
in a well, like a drowned puppy. This shall be thy
punishment, if ever I find thee double-dealing with thy
King any more. Meantime, the parchments stay here
with thy son. Him I will return to thee when thou hast
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: to the waggon, and gave her a 'tot' of Cape smoke, and then, as soon as
it was ready, poured about a pint of beef-tea down her throat, made from
the flesh of a blue vilderbeeste I had killed the day before, and after
that she brightened up wonderfully. She could talk Zulu--indeed, it
turned out that she had run away from Zululand in T'Chaka's time--and
she told me that all the people whom I had seen had died of fever. When
they had died the other inhabitants of the kraal had taken the cattle
and gone away, leaving the poor old woman, who was helpless from age and
infirmity, to perish of starvation or disease, as the case might be.
She had been sitting there for three days among the bodies when I found
her. I took her on to the next kraal, and gave the headman a blanket to
Long Odds |
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 United States Declaration of Independence: parchment "facsimiles" I used back in 1971, and which I should not
be able to easily find at this time, including "Brittain."
**The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Declaration of Independence**
#STARTMARK#
The Declaration of Independence of The United States of America
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for
one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected
them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the earth,
the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and
of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions
of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
United States Declaration of Independence |
