| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James: He waited for her in the large hall of the hotel, where the couriers,
the servants, the foreign tourists, were lounging about and staring.
It was not the place he should have chosen, but she had appointed it.
She came tripping downstairs, buttoning her long gloves,
squeezing her folded parasol against her pretty figure,
dressed in the perfection of a soberly elegant traveling costume.
Winterbourne was a man of imagination and, as our ancestors
used to say, sensibility; as he looked at her dress and,
on the great staircase, her little rapid, confiding step,
he felt as if there were something romantic going forward.
He could have believed he was going to elope with her.
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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 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: round that topic like a Bedouin round a caravan. Diane amused herself;
the marquise fumed. Diane waited; she intended to utilize her friend
and use her in the chase. Of these two women, both so celebrated in
the social world, one was far stronger than the other. The princess
rose by a head above the marquise, and the marquise was inwardly
conscious of that superiority. In this, perhaps, lay the secret of
their intimacy. The weaker of the two crouched low in her false
attachment, watching for the hour, long awaited by feeble beings, of
springing at the throat of the stronger and leaving the mark of a
joyful bite. Diane saw clear; but the world was the dupe of the wile
caresses of the two friends.
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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 Gambara by Honore de Balzac: "There goes a remarkably good-looking young man," said a girl in a low
voice, as she made way for him to pass.
"And who is only too well aware of it!" replied her companion aloud--
who was very plain.
After walking all round the arcades, the young man looked by turns at
the sky and at his watch, and with a shrug of impatience went into a
tobacconist's shop, lighted a cigar, and placed himself in front of a
looking-glass to glance at his costume, which was rather more ornate
than the rules of French taste allow. He pulled down his collar and
his black velvet waistcoat, over which hung many festoons of the thick
gold chain that is made at Venice; then, having arranged the folds of
Gambara |
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 Young Forester by Zane Grey: Then he stretched out. As we cleared the last obstructing pile of rocks I
looked back. There was a vast wave of fire rolling up the canyon and
spreading up the slopes. It was so close that I nearly fainted. With both
hands knotted and stiff I clung to the pommel in a cold horror, and I
looked back no more to see the flames reaching out for me. But I could
not keep the dreadful roar from filling my ears, and it weakened me so
that I all but dropped from the saddle. Only an unconscious instinct to
fight for life made me hold on.
Blue and white puffs of smoke swept by me. The trail was a dim, twisting
line. The slopes and pines, merged in a mass, flew backward in brown
sheets. Above the roar of the pursuing fire I heard the thunder of Target's
The Young Forester |
