| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: like precious stones under the earth, requiring toil to dig them
up, and care to polish and brighten them; but often a delicious
stream of thought would gush out upon the page at once, like
water sparkling up suddenly in the desert; and when it had
passed, I gnawed my pen hopelessly, or blundered on with cold and
miserable toil, as if there were a wall of ice between me and my
subject."
"Do you now perceive a corresponding difference," inquired I,
"between the passages which you wrote so coldly, and those fervid
flashes of the mind?"
"No," said Oberon, tossing the manuscripts on the table. "I find
The Snow Image |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Adventure by Jack London: him. It was deucedly unpleasant, he decided, this being peppered
at; and nonsensical as it really was, it was none the less deadly
serious. There was no avoiding the issue, no firing in the air and
getting over with it as in the old-fashioned duel. This mutual
man-hunt must keep up until one got the other. And if one
neglected a chance to get the other, that increased the other's
chance to get him. There could be no false sentiment about it.
Tudor had been a cunning devil when he proposed this sort of duel,
Sheldon concluded, as he began to work along cautiously in the
direction of the last shot.
When he arrived at the spot, Tudor was gone, and only his foot-
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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 The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: her, she deliberately killed her love and decently interred it.
She burned her notes and his one letter and put away her ring,
performing the rites not as rites but as a shameful business to be
done with quickly. She tore his photograph into bits and threw them
into her waste basket, and having thus housecleaned her room set to
work to houseclean her heart.
She found very little to do. She was numb and totally without
feeling. The little painful constriction in her chest which had so
often come lately with her thoughts of him was gone. She felt
extraordinarily empty, but not light, and her feet dragged about
the room.
The Breaking Point |
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 Apology by Plato: He would like to say a few words, while there is time, to those who would
have acquitted him. He wishes them to know that the divine sign never
interrupted him in the course of his defence; the reason of which, as he
conjectures, is that the death to which he is going is a good and not an
evil. For either death is a long sleep, the best of sleeps, or a journey
to another world in which the souls of the dead are gathered together, and
in which there may be a hope of seeing the heroes of old--in which, too,
there are just judges; and as all are immortal, there can be no fear of any
one suffering death for his opinions.
Nothing evil can happen to the good man either in life or death, and his
own death has been permitted by the gods, because it was better for him to
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