| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: poundin' 'im. When I come nights I can't git no rest 'cause
yer allus poundin' a kid. Let up, d'yeh hear? Don't be allus
poundin' a kid."
The woman's operations on the urchin instantly increased in violence.
At last she tossed him to a corner where he limply lay cursing and weeping.
The wife put her immense hands on her hips and with a
chieftain-like stride approached her husband.
"Ho," she said, with a great grunt of contempt. "An' what in
the devil are you stickin' your nose for?"
The babe crawled under the table and, turning, peered out
cautiously. The ragged girl retreated and the urchin in the corner
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: straight and narrow way.
I was roused by hearing Mr. Jamieson coming rapidly back through
the drawing-room. He stopped at the door.
"Miss Innes," he said quickly, "will you come with me and light
the east corridor? I have fastened somebody in the small room at
the head of the card-room stairs."
I jumped! up at once.
"You mean--the murderer?" I gasped.
"Possibly," he said quietly, as we hurried together up the
stairs. "Some one was lurking on the staircase when I went back.
I spoke; instead of an answer, whoever it was turned and ran up.
The Circular Staircase |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: snowballed each other and me. I tell you I felt a hundred years
old.
We got into the shelter-house by my crawling through a window,
and when we had lighted the fire and hung up the lantern, it
didn't seem so bad. The place had been closed since summer, and
it seemed colder than outside, but those two did the barn dance
then and there. There were two rooms, and Mr. Dick had always
used the back one to hide in. It's a good thing Mrs. Dick was
not a suspicious person. Many a woman would have wondered when
she saw him lift a board in the floor and take out a rusty tin
basin, a cake of soap, a moldy towel, a can of sardines, a tooth-
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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 Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: his thin neck projecting abruptly from the clothes he held about
him, his face staring about the room. He held the clothes about
him, I hope I may explain, because his night-shirt was at Bognor
in an American-cloth packet, derelict. He yawned a third time,
rubbed his eyes, smacked his lips. He was recalling almost
everything now. The pursuit, the hotel, the tremulous daring of
his entry, the swift adventure of the inn yard, the
moonlight--Abruptly he threw the clothes back and rose into a
sitting position on the edge of the bed. Without was the noise of
shutters being unfastened and doors unlocked, and the passing of
hoofs and wheels in the street. He looked at his watch. Half-past
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