| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: a great fuss about that--maybe you heard of it."
"I did," said Jurgis, "I heard of it afterward." (It had happened
in the place where he and Duane had taken refuge from their
"country customer." The girl had become insane, fortunately for
the police.)
"There's lots of money in it," said Marija--"they get as much as
forty dollars a head for girls, and they bring them from all
over. There are seventeen in this place, and nine different
countries among them. In some places you might find even more.
We have half a dozen French girls--I suppose it's because the
madame speaks the language. French girls are bad, too, the worst
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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 Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: The faces of each other for as long
As they had listened there to an old song,
Sung thinly in a wastrel monotone
By some unhappy night-bird, who had flown
Too many times and with a wing too strong
To save himself, and so done heavy wrong
To more frail elements than his alone.
Slowly away they went, leaving behind
More light than was before them. Neither met
The other's eyes again or said a word.
Each to his loneliness or to his kind,
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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 Persuasion by Jane Austen: Anne will stay; Anne undertakes to stay at home and take care of him.
It is Anne's own proposal, and so I shall go with you, which will be
a great deal better, for I have not dined at the other house since Tuesday."
"This is very kind of Anne," was her husband's answer, "and I should be
very glad to have you go; but it seems rather hard that she should be
left at home by herself, to nurse our sick child."
Anne was now at hand to take up her own cause, and the sincerity
of her manner being soon sufficient to convince him, where conviction
was at least very agreeable, he had no farther scruples as to her being
left to dine alone, though he still wanted her to join them in the evening,
when the child might be at rest for the night, and kindly urged her
Persuasion |
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 Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: only frown, and I will rise from my tomb!"
This pantalonnade did not produce all the effect Mazarin had
counted upon. Louis had already passed to considerations of
a higher nature, and as to Anne of Austria, unable to bear,
without abandoning herself to the anger she felt burning
within her, the magnanimity of her son and the hypocrisy of
the cardinal, she arose and left the chamber, heedless of
thus betraying the extent of her grief. Mazarin saw all
this, and fearing that Louis XIV. might repent his decision,
in order to draw attention another way he began to cry out,
as, at a later period, Scapin was to cry out, in that
Ten Years Later |
