| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: to bring down his fiddle. He seemed in a fair way to be transformed
into "the melancholy Jaques."
It was Serena who broke the spell; and she did it in a woman's way,
the simplest way in the world--by taking no notice of it.
"Ain't you goin' to play for me to-night?" she asked one evening, as
Jacques passed through the kitchen. Whereupon the evil spirit was
exorcised, and the violin came back again to its place in the life
of the house.
But there was less time for music now than there had been in the
winter. As the snow vanished from the woods, and the frost leaked
out of the ground, and the ice on the lake was honeycombed, breaking
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: gave to the first-born of the eldest pair his mother's dwelling and the
surrounding allotment, which was the largest and best, and made him king
over the rest; the others he made princes, and gave them rule over many
men, and a large territory. And he named them all; the eldest, who was the
first king, he named Atlas, and after him the whole island and the ocean
were called Atlantic. To his twin brother, who was born after him, and
obtained as his lot the extremity of the island towards the pillars of
Heracles, facing the country which is now called the region of Gades in
that part of the world, he gave the name which in the Hellenic language is
Eumelus, in the language of the country which is named after him, Gadeirus.
Of the second pair of twins he called one Ampheres, and the other Evaemon.
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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 Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: them and the riders. They were approaching at a swift canter.
Soon Venters recognized Tull's white horse, and concluded that
the riders had likewise recognized Black Star and Night. But it
would be impossible for Tull yet to see that the blacks were not
ridden by Lassiter and Jane. Venters noted that Tull and the line
of horsemen, perhaps ten or twelve in number, stopped several
times and evidently looked hard down the slope. It must have been
a puzzling circumstance for Tull. Venters laughed grimly at the
thought of what Tull's rage would be when he finally discovered
the trick. Venters meant to sheer out into the sage before Tull
could possibly be sure who rode the blacks.
Riders of the Purple Sage |
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 The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: Take not his life: he risked it for my own;
His mother lives: yet whatsoe'er you do,
Fight and fight well; strike and strike him. O dear
Brothers, the woman's Angel guards you, you
The sole men to be mingled with our cause,
The sole men we shall prize in the after-time,
Your very armour hallowed, and your statues
Reared, sung to, when, this gad-fly brushed aside,
We plant a solid foot into the Time,
And mould a generation strong to move
With claim on claim from right to right, till she
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