| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Desert Gold by Zane Grey: sweet face. Nell was holding out her arms--she was crying aloud
to him across the sand and the cactus and the lava. She was in
trouble, and he had been forgetting.
That night he climbed the lava to the topmost cone, and never
slipped on a ragged crust nor touched a choya thorn. A voice
called to him. He saw Nell's eyes in the stars, in the velvet
blue of sky, in the blackness of the engulfing shadows.
She was with him, a slender shape, a spirit, keeping step
with him, and memory was strong, sweet, beating, beautiful.
Far down in the west, faintly golden with light of the sinking moon,
he saw a cloud that resembled her face. A cloud on the desert horizon!
Desert Gold |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: LOW-BRED, adj. "Raised" instead of brought up.
LUMINARY, n. One who throws light upon a subject; as an editor by not
writing about it.
LUNARIAN, n. An inhabitant of the moon, as distinguished from
Lunatic, one whom the moon inhabits. The Lunarians have been
described by Lucian, Locke and other observers, but without much
agreement. For example, Bragellos avers their anatomical identity
with Man, but Professor Newcomb says they are more like the hill
tribes of Vermont.
LYRE, n. An ancient instrument of torture. The word is now used in a
figurative sense to denote the poetic faculty, as in the following
The Devil's Dictionary |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: He knows the earth above and under -
Sits and is content to view.
He sits beside the dying ember,
God for hope and man for friend,
Content to see, glad to remember,
Expectant of the certain end.
XXIV
FAREWELL, fair day and fading light!
The clay-born here, with westward sight,
Marks the huge sun now downward soar.
Farewell. We twain shall meet no more.
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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 Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: suspected the person who attended on it of designing a spiteful
squeeze. The lock was re-secured. Heathcliff approached the fire,
where my mistress and I stood silent. Catherine looked up, and
instinctively raised her hand to her cheek: his neighbourhood
revived a painful sensation. Anybody else would have been
incapable of regarding the childish act with sternness, but he
scowled on her and muttered - 'Oh! you are not afraid of me? Your
courage is well disguised: you seem damnably afraid!'
'I AM afraid now,' she replied, 'because, if I stay, papa will be
miserable: and how can I endure making him miserable - when he -
when he - Mr. Heathcliff, let ME go home! I promise to marry
Wuthering Heights |
