| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: body; I set out on that hopeless, never-ending quest for a
more comfortable posture; I would be fevered and weary of the
staring sun; and just then he would begin courteously to
withdraw his countenance, the shadows lengthened, the
aromatic airs awoke, and an indescribable but happy change
announced the coming of the night.
The hours of evening, when we were once curtained in the
friendly dark, sped lightly. Even as with the crickets,
night brought to us a certain spirit of rejoicing. It was
good to taste the air; good to mark the dawning of the stars,
as they increased their glittering company; good, too, to
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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 Voice of the City by O. Henry: "Hush up!" said Mr. Peters, licking his lips.
"We got to get that case note somehow, boys. Ain't
what's a man's wife's his? Leave it to me. I'll go
over to the house and get it. Wait here for me."
"I've seen 'em give up quick, and tell you where
it's hid if you kick 'em in the ribs," said Kidd.
"No man would kick a woman," said Peters, vir-
tuously. "A little choking - just a touch on the
windpipe - that gets away with 'em - and no marks
left. Wait for me. I'll bring back that dollar, boys."
High up in a tenement-house between Second Ave-
The Voice of the City |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: the women had returned into the drawing room. The air there was
heavy with the somnolence which accompanies a long vigil, and the
lamps cast a wavering light while their burned-out wicks glowed red
within their globes. The ladies had reached that vaguely melancholy
hour when they felt it necessary to tell each other their histories.
Blanche de Sivry spoke of her grandfather, the general, while
Clarisse invented a romantic story about a duke seducing her at her
uncle's house, whither he used to come for the boar hunting. Both
women, looking different ways, kept shrugging their shoulders and
asking themselves how the deuce the other could tell such whoppers!
As to Lucy Stewart, she quietly confessed to her origin and of her
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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 Adam Bede by George Eliot: all her movements, Adam thought--something harder, older, less
child-like. "Poor thing!" he said to himself, "that's allays
likely. It's because she's had her first heartache. But she's
got a spirit to bear up under it. Thank God for that."
As the weeks went by, and he saw her always looking pleased to see
him--turning up her lovely face towards him as if she meant him to
understand that she was glad for him to come--and going about her
work in the same equable way, making no sign of sorrow, he began
to believe that her feeling towards Arthur must have been much
slighter than he had imagined in his first indignation and alarm,
and that she had been able to think of her girlish fancy that
Adam Bede |
