| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: private offices, her breath coming a little quickly, into the
presence of the shiny secretary--shiny teeth, shiny hair, shiny
skin, shiny nails. He gazed upon Emma McChesney, the shine
gleaming brighter. He took in his slim, brown fingers the card
on which Senor Pages had scribbled that day on board ship. The
shine became dazzling. He bowed low and backed his way into the
office of Senor Pages.
A successful man is most impressive when in those surroundings
which have been built up by his success. On shipboard, Senor
Pages had been a genial, charming, distinguished fellow
passenger. In his luxurious business office he still was genial,
Emma McChesney & Co. |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: them in the state. They did their work, he thought, as the ploughed
earth bears its crops. Apart from their function of fertility they
gave a humorous twist to life, stimulated worthy men to toil, and
wasted the hours of Princes. He left the thought of women outside
with his other dusty things when he went into his study to write,
dismissed them from his mind. But our modern world is burthened
with its sense of the immense, now half articulate, significance of
women. They stand now, as it were, close beside the silver
candlesticks, speaking as Machiavelli writes, until he stays his pen
and turns to discuss his writing with them.
It is this gradual discovery of sex as a thing collectively
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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 Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: "but the gentleman who attends you is not my lord, your father."
"And why should you think so, Alice?" said Lucy; "or how is it
possible for you to judge so accurately by the sound of a step,
on this firm earth, and in the open air?"
"My hearing, my child, has been sharpened by my blindness, and I
can now draw conclusions from the slightest sounds, which
formerly reached my ears as unheeded as they niw approach yours.
Necessity is a stern but an excellent schoolmistress, and she
that has lost her sight must collect her information from other
sources."
"Well, you hear a man's step, I grant it," said Lucy; "but why,
The Bride of Lammermoor |
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 Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: came down on the beach to bathe. It was understood that at eleven o'clock
the women and children of the summer colony had the sea to themselves.
First the women undressed, pulled on their bathing dresses and covered
their heads in hideous caps like sponge bags; then the children were
unbuttoned. The beach was strewn with little heaps of clothes and shoes;
the big summer hats, with stones on them to keep them from blowing away,
looked like immense shells. It was strange that even the sea seemed to
sound differently when all those leaping, laughing figures ran into the
waves. Old Mrs. Fairfield, in a lilac cotton dress and a black hat tied
under the chin, gathered her little brood and got them ready. The little
Trout boys whipped their shirts over their heads, and away the five sped,
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