| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: There - and now I am busy. Goodnight."
With these words Muller pushed the astonished man out of the room,
shut the door, and sat down again with his little book. This is
what he read:
"Wednesday - is it Wednesday? They brought me a newspaper to-day
which had the date of Wednesday, the 20th of November. The ink
still smells fresh, but it is so damp here, the paper may have
been older. I do not know surely on what day it is that I begin
to write this narrative. I do not know either whether I may not
have been ill for days and weeks; I do not know what may have been
the matter with me - I know only that I was unconscious, and that
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Young Forester by Zane Grey: "Wal, dog-gone my buttons!" he ejaculated. "Who're you?"
I blurted out all about myself, at the same time taking stock of him. He
was not young, but I had never seen a young man so splendid. Hair, beard,
and skin were all of a dark gray. His eyes, too, were gray--the keenest and
clearest I had ever looked into. They shone with a kindly light, otherwise
I might have thought his face hard and stern. His shoulders were very wide,
his arms long, his hands enormous. His buckskin shirt attracted my
attention to his other clothes, which looked like leather overalls or heavy
canvas. A belt carried a huge knife and a number of shells of large
caliber; the Winchester he had was exceedingly long and heavy, and of an
old pattern. The look of him brought back my old fancy of Wetzel or Kit
The Young Forester |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: window overhead was company. She would often climb the stairs to
tell them some bit of village gossip, and leave them laughing at
a quaint comment about some inquisitive sister of the church, who
had happened to incur her displeasure.
As spring came on, Douglas carried Polly down to the sun-lit
garden beneath the window; and Mandy fluttered about arranging
the cushions with motherly solicitude.
More days slipped by, and Polly began to creep through the
little, soft-leaved trees at the back of the church, and to look
for the deep, blue, sweet-scented violets. When she was able,
Douglas took her with him to visit some of the outlying houses of
|
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 Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare: And I shall woo her to cut of my head.
Blot, blot, good Lodowick! Let us hear the next.
LODOWICK.
There's all that yet is done.
KING EDWARD.
I thank thee then; thou hast done little ill,
But what is done, is passing, passing ill.
No, let the Captain talk of boisterous war,
The prisoner of emured dark constraint,
The sick man best sets down the pangs of death,
The man that starves the sweetness of a feast,
|
