| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: again.
"Right," she answered; adding upon the moment: "Huh! more
Chinamen; the thing is alive with coolies; she's a junk."
"Oh!" exclaimed Wilbur, recollecting some talk of Charlie's he had
overheard. "I know."
"You know?"
"Yes; these are real beach-combers. I've heard of them along this
coast--heard our Chinamen speak of them. They beach that junk
every night and camp on shore. They're scavengers, as you might
say--pick up what they can find or plunder along shore--abalones,
shark-fins, pickings of wrecks, old brass and copper, seals
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: on the ground, he tore up dry tall grass with both his hands and
tossed it fast into the blanket.
Tying all the four corners together in a knot, he threw the
light bundle of grass over his shoulder.
Snatching up a slender willow stick with his free left hand,
he started off with a hop and a leap. From side to side bounced
the bundle on his back, as he ran light-footed over the uneven
ground. Soon he came to the edge of the great level land. On the
hilltop he paused for breath. With wicked smacks of his dry
parched lips, as if tasting some tender meat, he looked straight
into space toward the marshy river bottom. With a thin palm
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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 New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: been escapes me,--some forgotten dinner, I suppose. I went into her
room. I remember I didn't speak for some moments. I went across to
the window and pulled the blind aside, and looked out upon the
railed garden of the square, with its shrubs and shadowed turf
gleaming pallidly and irregularly in the light of the big electric
standard in the corner.
"Margaret," I said, "I think I shall break with the party."
She made no answer. I turned presently, a movement of enquiry.
"I was afraid you meant to do that," she said.
"I'm out of touch," I explained. "Altogether."
"Oh! I know."
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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 The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: by which, in softening their instructions from beyond the sea,
they had incurred the reprehension of those who gave them. The
annals of Massachusetts Bay will inform us, that of six governors
in the space of about forty years from the surrender of the old
charter, under James II, two were imprisoned by a popular
insurrection; a third, as Hutchinson inclines to believe, was
driven from the province by the whizzing of a musket-ball; a
fourth, in the opinion of the same historian, was hastened to his
grave by continual bickerings with the House of Representatives;
and the remaining two, as well as their successors, till the
Revolution, were favored with few and brief intervals of peaceful
The Snow Image |
