| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: "Oh precisely! But he needn't marry at all--I'm at any rate not
obliged to provide for it. Whereas in your case I rather feel that
I AM."
Little Bilham was amused. "Obliged to provide for my marrying?"
"Yes--after all I've done to you!"
The young man weighed it. "Have you done as much as that?"
"Well," said Strether, thus challenged, "of course I must remember
what you've also done to ME. We may perhaps call it square. But
all the same," he went on, "I wish awfully you'd marry Mamie Pocock
yourself."
Little Bilham laughed out. "Why it was only the other night, in
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: find the debtor and collect the debt. How accomplish this, do you say?
How accomplish it, and feel so sure about it, when I had neither seen
the robbers' faces, nor heard their natural voices, nor had any idea
who they might be? Nevertheless, I WAS sure--quite sure, quite confident.
I had a clue--a clue which you would not have valued--a clue which would
not have greatly helped even a detective, since he would lack the secret
of how to apply it. I shall come to that, presently--you shall see.
Let us go on, now, taking things in their due order. There was one
circumstance which gave me a slant in a definite direction to begin with:
Those two robbers were manifestly soldiers in tramp disguise; and not
new to military service, but old in it--regulars, perhaps; they did
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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 Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde: "Why are you weeping then?" asked the Swallow; "you have quite
drenched me."
"When I was alive and had a human heart," answered the statue, "I
did not know what tears were, for I lived in the Palace of Sans-
Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the daytime I
played with my companions in the garden, and in the evening I led
the dance in the Great Hall. Round the garden ran a very lofty
wall, but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about
me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and
happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness. So I lived, and so I
died. And now that I am dead they have set me up here so high that
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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 Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: stayed home and learned to make veal loaf and apple pies. The
worry lines around Pa Keller's face began to deepen. Ivy said that
she didn't believe that she cared to go back to Miss Shont's select
school for young ladies.
October thirty-first came.
"We'll take the eight-fifteen to-morrow," said her father to
Ivy.
"All right," said Ivy.
"Do you know where he works?" asked he.
"No," answered Ivy.
"That'll be all right. I took the trouble to look him up last
Buttered Side Down |
