| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Baby Mine by Margaret Mayo: recital of his long pent up wrongs, "you told me that all babies
should be put in cages, shipped West, and kept in pens until they
got to be of an interesting age. 'Interesting age!' " he
repeated with a sneer, "meaning old enough to take YOU out to
luncheon, I suppose."
"I never said any such thing," objected Zoie.
"Well, that was the idea," insisted Alfred. "I haven't your glib
way of expressing myself."
"You manage to express yourself very well," retorted Zoie. "When
you have anything DISAGREEABLE to say. As for babies," she
continued tentatively, "I think they are all very well in their
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: each entry, the PREMIERE DANSEUSE pretended to be overcome by
shame, as though led on beyond what she had meant, and her male
assistants made a feint of driving her away like one who had
disgraced herself. Similar affectations accompany certain truly
obscene dances of Samoa, where they are very well in place. Here
it was different. The words, perhaps, in this free-spoken world,
were gross enough to make a carter blush; and the most suggestive
feature was this feint of shame. For such parts the women showed
some disposition; they were pert, they were neat, they were
acrobatic, they were at times really amusing, and some of them were
pretty. But this is not the artist's field; there is the whole
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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 Heart of the West by O. Henry: and how to restore drowned persons, and sunstroke, and the number of
tacks in a pound, and how to make dynamite and flowers and beds, and
what to do before the doctor comes--and a hundred times as many things
besides. If there was anything Herkimer didn't know I didn't miss it
out of the book.
I sat and read that book for four hours. All the wonders of education
was compressed in it. I forgot the snow, and I forgot that me and old
Idaho was on the outs. He was sitting still on a stool reading away
with a kind of partly soft and partly mysterious look shining through
his tan-bark whiskers.
"Idaho," says I, "what kind of a book is yours?"
Heart of the West |
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 Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: Brigadier-General, was undoubtedly one of the best matches in the
army.
It was now nearly midnight. The conversation, the gambling, the
dancing, the flirtations, interests, petty rivalries, and scheming had
all reached the pitch of ardor which makes a young man exclaim
involuntarily, "A fine ball!"
"My sweet little angel," said Madame de Lansac to the Countess, "you
are now at an age when in my day I made many mistakes. Seeing you are
just now enduring a thousand deaths, it occurred to me that I might
give you some charitable advice. To go wrong at two-and-twenty means
spoiling your future; is it not tearing the gown you must wear? My
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