| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: to accept, he either threw it away, or suffered it to remain
where it was without making use of it. On all occasions his
manners were rude and unsocial; and his words, in number, just
sufficient to express his meaning as briefly as possible, and he
shunned all communication that went a syllable beyond the matter
in hand. When winter had passed away, and his garden began to
afford him herbs and vegetables, he confined himself almost
entirely to those articles of food. He accepted,
notwithstanding, a pair of she-goats from Earnscliff, which fed
on the moor, and supplied him with milk.
When Earnscliff found his gift had been received, he soon
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: it tells a story of a domestic entanglement in a dramatic fashion
well calculated to hold the reader's attention.
"Contains all of the qualities that are said to be conspicuously lacking
in American Drama." -- ~N. Y. Evening Sun~.
Van Zorn: A Comedy in Three Acts
~Cloth, 12mo, $1.25~
Mr. Robinson is known as the leader of present-day American poets.
In this delightful play he tells with a biting humor
the story of the salvation of a soul. By clever arrangement of incident
and skillful characterization he arouses strongly the reader's curiosity,
and the suspense is admirably sustained. The dialogue is bright,
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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 Sportsman by Xenophon: same method of the chase in dealing with them.
[13] {piesas}, "noosling, nestling, buried."
[14] "The blood runs cold."
[15] Or, "but it will give them a good chase; the dogs will have their
work cut out."
Young fawns may be captured in the way described. Those that are
already big will give more trouble, since they graze with their
mothers and the other deer, and when pursued retire in the middle of
the herd or occasionally in front, but very seldom in the rear. The
deer, moreover, in order to protect their young will do battle with
the hounds and trample them under foot; so that capture is not easy,
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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 Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: to make the best of it, she began slowly to eat the meal before her.
But the quarrel had taken away her appetite, for the mixture in our
chafing-dish was hardly ready to serve before she pushed her chair
back a little and looked around the room.
I caught my first glimpse of her face then, and I confess it
startled me. It was the tall, stately woman of the Ontario, the
woman I had last seen cowering beside the road, rolling pebbles in
her hand, blood streaming from a cut over her eye. I could see the
scar now, a little affair, about an inch long, gleaming red through
its layers of powder.
And then, quite unexpectedly, she turned and looked directly at me.
The Man in Lower Ten |
