| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: credit of my art upon the truth of these predictions; and I will
be content, that Partridge, and the rest of his clan, may hoot me
for a cheat and impostor, if I fail in any singular particular of
moment. I believe, any man who reads this paper, will look upon
me to be at least a person of as much honesty and understanding,
as a common maker of almanacks. I do not lurk in the dark; I am
not wholly unknown in the world; I have set my name at length, to
be a mark of infamy to mankind, if they shall find I deceive
them.
In one thing I must desire to be forgiven, that I talk more
sparingly of home-affairs: As it will be imprudence to discover
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: suppression of the foreign slave-trade, are each as well enforced,
perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral
sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself.
The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation
in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think,
cannot be perfectly cured; and it would be worse in both cases
AFTER the separation of the sections than BEFORE. The foreign
slave-trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived,
without restriction, in one section, while fugitive slaves,
now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered
at all by the other.
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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: "It--can't--be--true!"
"Thank God, lass, it is true," replied Lassiter. "Jane an' Bern
here--they both recognize Milly. They see Milly in you. They're
so knocked out they can't tell you, that's all."
"Who are you?" whispered Bess.
"I reckon I'm Milly's brother an' your uncle!...Uncle Jim! Ain't
that fine?"
"Oh, I can't believe--Don't raise me! Bern, let me kneel. I see
truth in your face--in Miss Withersteen's. But let me hear it
all--all on my knees. Tell me how it's true!"
"Well, Elizabeth, listen," said Lassiter. "Before you was born
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 Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: held on the same terms and of the same vanishing quality.
I would have smiled at my absurdity if all, even the most intimate,
vestige of gaiety had not been crushed out of my heart by the
intolerable weight of my love for Rita. It crushed, it
overshadowed, too, it was immense. If there were any smiles in the
world (which I didn't believe) I could not have seen them. Love
for Rita . . . if it was love, I asked myself despairingly, while I
brushed my hair before a glass. It did not seem to have any sort
of beginning as far as I could remember. A thing the origin of
which you cannot trace cannot be seriously considered. It is an
illusion. Or perhaps mine was a physical state, some sort of
The Arrow of Gold |
