| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery: "Not out loud, I hope," said Marilla anxiously.
"Oh, no, just under my breath. Well, Mr. Bell did get through
at last and they told me to go into the classroom with Miss
Rogerson's class. There were nine other girls in it.
They all had puffed sleeves. I tried to imagine mine
were puffed, too, but I couldn't. Why couldn't I? It was
as easy as could be to imagine they were puffed when I was
alone in the east gable, but it was awfully hard there
among the others who had really truly puffs."
"You shouldn't have been thinking about your sleeves in
Sunday school. You should have been attending to the lesson.
Anne of Green Gables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: lady,' I continued, 'there are many of your countrymen languishing
in my country, even as I do here. I can but hope there is found
some French lady to convey to each of them the priceless
consolation of her sympathy. You have given me alms; and more than
alms - hope; and while you were absent I was not forgetful. Suffer
me to be able to tell myself that I have at least tried to make a
return; and for the prisoner's sake deign to accept this trifle.'
So saying, I offered her my lion, which she took, looked at in some
embarrassment, and then, catching sight of the dedication, broke
out with a cry.
'Why, how did you know my name?' she exclaimed.
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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 Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac: At the beginning of the month of December of that year, a season at
which the bourgeois of Paris conceive, periodically, the burlesque
idea of perpetuating their forms and figures already too bulky in
themselves, Pierre Grassou, who had risen early, prepared his palette,
and lighted his stove, was eating a roll steeped in milk, and waiting
till the frost on his windows had melted sufficiently to let the full
light in. The weather was fine and dry. At this moment the artist, who
ate his bread with that patient, resigned air that tells so much,
heard and recognized the step of a man who had upon his life the
influence such men have on the lives of nearly all artists,--the step
of Elie Magus, a picture-dealer, a usurer in canvas. The next moment
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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 The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: as he could. He presently came to have a hunted sense and a hunted look,
and then he fled away to the hilltops and the solitudes.
He said to himself that the curse of Ham was upon him.
He dreaded his meals; the "nigger" in him was ashamed to sit at the
white folk's table, and feared discovery all the time; and once when Judge
Driscoll said, "What's the matter with you? You look as meek as
a nigger," he felt as secret murderers are said to feel when
the accuser says, "Thou art the man!" Tom said he was not well,
and left the table.
His ostensible "aunt's" solicitudes and endearments were become
a terror to him, and he avoided them.
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