| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: "but I am not ready to speak for Miss Vivian."
"Well, I am," Blanche declared. "She won't marry him."
"If she does n't, I 'll eat my hat!" said Captain Lovelock.
"What do you mean," he went on, "by saying that in America a pretty
girl's mother does n't care for a young fellow's property?"
"Well, they don't--we consider that dreadful. Why don't you say so,
Mr. Longueville?" Blanche demanded. "I never saw any one take things
so quietly. Have n't you got any patriotism?"
"My patriotism is modified by an indisposition to generalize,"
said Bernard, laughing. "On this point permit me not to generalize.
I am interested in the particular case--in ascertaining whether
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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 Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: "I wonder why Eudora always avoided him so, years ago," said
Amelia.
"Why doesn't a girl in a field of daisies stop to pick one, which
she never forgets?" said Sophia. "Eudora had so many chances,
and I don't think her heart was fixed when she was very young; at
least, I don't think it was fixed so she knew it."
"I wonder," said Amelia, "if he will go and call on her."
Amelia privately wished that she lived near enough to know if
Harry Lawton did call. She, as well as Mrs. Joseph Glynn, would
have enjoyed watching out and knowing something of the village
happenings, but the Lancaster house was situated so far from the
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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 Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: across a rock, and slept and slept the day round, and the night
back again.
When he waked, Bagheera was at his side, and there was a newly-
killed buck at his feet. Bagheera watched curiously while Mowgli
went to work with his skinning-knife, ate and drank, and turned
over with his chin in his hands.
"The man and the woman are come safe within eye-shot of
Khanhiwara," Bagheera said. "Thy lair mother sent the word back
by Chil, the Kite. They found a horse before midnight of the
night they were freed, and went very quickly. Is not that well?"
"That is well," said Mowgli.
The Second Jungle Book |
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 People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: saplings from the forest and laid a road into the swamp before
they could get us all out, and then we marched back to the city
of Jor the Galu chief, and there was great rejoicing when Ajor
came home again mounted upon the glossy back of the stallion Ace.
Tyler and Hollis and Short and all the rest of us Americans
nearly worked our jaws loose on the march back to the village,
and for days afterward we kept it up. They told me how they had
crossed the barrier cliffs in five days, working twenty-four
hours a day in three eight-hour shifts with two reliefs to each
shift alternating half-hourly. Two men with electric drills
driven from the dynamos aboard the Toreador drilled two
The People That Time Forgot |
