| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: the grocer. It was a semi-fashionable locality, far up-town,
away from the old-time French quarter. It was the sort of
neighbourhood where millionaires live before their fortunes are
made and fashionable, high-priced private schools flourish, where
the small cottages are occupied by aspiring school-teachers and
choir-singers. Such was this locality, and you must admit that
it was indeed a condescension to tolerate Tony and Mrs. Murphy.
He was a great, black-bearded, hoarse-voiced, six-foot specimen
of Italian humanity, who looked in his little shop and on the
prosaic pavement of Prytania Street somewhat as Hercules might
seem in a modern drawing-room. You instinctively thought of wild
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: dismal reminiscences. The next moment he was as ready for sport
as any unbreeched infant: far readier than the Collector's junior
clerk, who at nineteen years was much the elder and graver man of
the two.
I used to watch and study this patriarchal personage with, I
think, livelier curiosity than any other form of humanity there
presented to my notice. He was, in truth, a rare phenomenon; so
perfect, in one point of view; so shallow, so delusive, so
impalpable such an absolute nonentity, in every other. My
conclusion was that he had no soul, no heart, no mind; nothing,
The Scarlet Letter |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: am still helpless and ignorant. The moon, by more than twenty
changes, admonished me of the flux of life; the stream that rolled
before my feet upbraided my inactivity. I sat feasting on
intellectual luxury, regardless alike of the examples of the earth
and the instructions of the planets. Twenty months are passed:
who shall restore them?"
These sorrowful meditations fastened upon his mind; he passed four
months in resolving to lose no more time in idle resolves, and was
awakened to more vigorous exertion by hearing a maid, who had
broken a porcelain cup, remark that what cannot be repaired is not
to be regretted.
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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 Betty Zane by Zane Grey: many years, and his dealings were ever kind and honorable. After the country
got settled he received from time to time various marks of distinction from
the State, Colonial, and National governments. His most noted achievement was
completed about 1796. President Washington, desiring to open a National road
from Fort Henry to Maysville, Kentucky, paid a great tribute to Col. Zane's
ability by employing him to undertake the arduous task. His brother Jonathan
and the Indian guide, Tomepomehala, rendered valuable aid in blazing out the
path through the wilderness. This road, famous for many years as Zane's Trace,
opened the beautiful Ohio valley to the ambitious pioneer. For this service
Congress granted Col. Zane the privilege of locating military warrants upon
three sections of land, each a square mile in extent, which property the
Betty Zane |
