| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: plain, and there she sits on my back with her bugle at her mouth
and sounds the orders and puts them through the evolutions for an
hour or more; and it is too beautiful for anything to see those
ponies dissolve from one formation into another, and waltz about,
and break, and scatter, and form again, always moving, always
graceful, now trotting, now galloping, and so on, sometimes near
by, sometimes in the distance, all just like a state ball, you
know, and sometimes she can't hold herself any longer, but sounds
the 'charge,' and turns me loose! and you can take my word for it,
if the battalion hasn't too much of a start we catch up and go over
the breastworks with the front line.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: coffin an' begun to sing while Mr. Dimmick was speakin'. He was
put out by it, an' acted as if he didn't know whether to stop or go
on. I may have been prejudiced, but I wa'n't the only one thought
the poor little bird done the best of the two."
"What became o' the man that treated her so, did you ever
hear?" asked Mrs. Fosdick. "I know he lived up to Massachusetts
for a while. Somebody who came from the same place told me that he
was in trade there an' doin' very well, but that was years ago."
"I never heard anything more than that; he went to the war in
one o' the early regiments. No, I never heard any more of him,"
answered Mrs. Todd. "Joanna was another sort of person, and
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Master Key by L. Frank Baum: as they are good!" thought the boy, resentfully. "This would be a
fine world if Electric Tubes and Records of Events and Traveling
Machines could be acquired by selfish and unprincipled persons!"
So unnerved was Rob by his recent experiences that he determined to
make no more stops. However, he alighted at nightfall in the country,
and slept upon the sweet hay in a farmer's barn.
But, early the next morning, before any one else was astir, he resumed
his journey, and at precisely ten o'clock of this day, which was
Saturday, he completed his flying trip around the world by alighting
unobserved upon the well-trimmed lawn of his own home.
19. Rob Makes a Resolution
The Master Key |
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 When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard: knees, stretched out her hands in supplication to her father. I
understood, as did we all, that she was imploring him to abandon
his hellish purpose. He glared at her and shook his head. Then,
as she still went on praying, he struck her across the face with
his hand and pushed her to her feet again. My blood boiled as I
saw it and I think I should have sprung at him, had not Bickley
caught hold of me, shouting, "Don't, or he will kill her and us
too."
Yva lifted her shield and returned to her station, and in the
blue discharges which now flashed almost continuously, and the
phosphorescent glare of the advancing mountain, I saw that though
When the World Shook |
