| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: the bit go 'round. Show me a house with a swag in it and a pretty
parlor-maid, and you might as well call the silver melted down and
sold, and me spilling truffles and that Chateau stuff on the napkin
under my chin, while the police are calling it an inside job just
because the old lady's nephew teaches a Bible class. I first make an
impression on the girl,' says Bill, 'and when she lets me inside I
make an impression on the locks. But this one in Little Rock done me,'
says he. 'She saw me taking a trolley ride with another girl, and when
I came 'round on the night she was to leave the door open for me it
was fast. And I had keys made for the doors upstairs. But, no sir. She
had sure cut off my locks. She was a Delilah,' says Bill Bassett.
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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 Odyssey by Homer: city with a wall, built houses and temples, and divided the
lands among his people; but he was dead and gone to the house of
Hades, and King Alcinous, whose counsels were inspired of
heaven, was now reigning. To his house, then, did Minerva hie in
furtherance of the return of Ulysses.
She went straight to the beautifully decorated bedroom in which
there slept a girl who was as lovely as a goddess, Nausicaa,
daughter to King Alcinous. Two maid servants were sleeping near
her, both very pretty, one on either side of the doorway, which
was closed with well made folding doors. Minerva took the form
of the famous sea captain Dymas's daughter, who was a bosom
The Odyssey |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: shepherd's menace, and though he understood English
but imperfectly, began to growl.
"Now, don't ye take on so, shepherd, and sit down!"
said Henery, with a deprecating peacefulness equal to
anything of the kind in Christianity.
"We hear that ye be a extraordinary good and
clever man, shepherd." said Joseph Poorgrass with
considerable anxiety from behind the maltster's bed-
stead whither he had retired for safety. "'Tis a great
thing to be clever, I'm sure." he added, making move-
ments associated with states of mind rather than body;
Far From the Madding Crowd |
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 Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: cascade, the stars wavering in the shaken pool, foam flitting, and
high overhead the tall pines on either hand serenely drinking
starshine; and in the sudden quiet of her spirit she heard with joy
the firm plunge of the cataract in the pool. She scrambled forth
dripping. In the face of her proved weakness, to adventure again
upon the horror of blackness in the groves were a suicide of life or
reason. But here, in the alley of the brook, with the kind stars
above her, and the moon presently swimming into sight, she could
await the coming of day without alarm.
This lane of pine-trees ran very rapidly down-hill and wound among
the woods; but it was a wider thoroughfare than the brook needed,
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