| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: one with whom you are not in love is an inevitable step in a world
where the existence of passion is only a traveller's story brought
from the heart of deep forests and told so rarely that wise people
doubt whether the story can be true. She did her best to listen to her
mother asking for news of John, and to her aunt replying with the
authentic history of Hilda's engagement to an officer in the Indian
Army, but she cast her mind alternately towards forest paths and
starry blossoms, and towards pages of neatly written mathematical
signs. When her mind took this turn her marriage seemed no more than
an archway through which it was necessary to pass in order to have her
desire. At such times the current of her nature ran in its deep narrow
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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 Oakdale Affair by Edgar Rice Burroughs: you my frien'."
"I hope you are quite correct in your surmise," re-
plied Bridge. "But even so I'm not taking any chances."
o o o
Willie Case had been taken to Payson to testify be-
fore the coroner's jury investigating the death of Giova's
father, and with the dollar which The Oskaloosa Kid
had given him in the morning burning in his pocket had
proceeded to indulge in an orgy of dissipation the mo-
ment that he had been freed from the inquest. Ice
cream, red pop, peanuts, candy, and soda water may
The Oakdale Affair |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: Peyrade; "but, in spite of your discouragement, you must allow me, my
friend, to persist in my suit to Mademoiselle Colleville. Perhaps it
is ridiculous to confess it, but the truth is I am gradually falling
in love with that little girl. It isn't that her beauty is
resplendent, or that the glitter of her 'dot' has dazzled me, but I
find in that child a great fund of sound sense joined to simplicity;
and, what to mind is of greater consequence, her sincere and solid
piety attracts me; I think a husband ought to be very happy with her."
"Yes," said Cerizet, who, having been on the stage, may very well have
known his Moliere, "this marriage will crown your wishes with all
good; it will be filled with sweetness and with pleasures."
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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 An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: well that the priests and monks seek this cloak for their
blasphemies. They want to give to Christendom the damage caused
by their own negligence. Then, when we say, "Christendom does not
err," we shall also be saying that they do not err, since
Christendom believes it to be so. So no pilgrimage can be wrong,
no matter how obviously the Devil is a participant in it. No
indulgence can be wrong, regardless of how horrible the lies
involved. In other words, there is nothing there but holiness!
Therefore to this you reply, "It is not a question of who is and
who is not condemned." They inject this irrelevant idea in order
to divert us from the topic at hand. We are now discussing the
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