| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: "No," said Hortense. "It isn't done."
"Well, I've never seen anything approaching such behavior in our set. And
he was ready to go further. Nobody knows where it might have gone to, if
Charley's perfect coolness hadn't rebuked him and brought him to his
senses. There's where it is, that's what I mean, Hortense, by saying you
could always feel safe with Charley."
Hortense put in a languid word. "I think I should always feel safe with
Mr. Mayrant."
But Kitty was a simple soul. "Indeed you couldn't, Hortense! I assure you
that you're mistaken. There's where you get so wrong about men sometimes.
I have been studying that boy for your sake ever since we got here, and I
know him through and through. And I tell you, you cannot count upon him.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: burden scarcely impeded his progress, and he soon beheld the fire
rays from the windows of the cottage which he, a native of a
distant clime, had built in the western wilderness. It was
surrounded by a considerable extent of cultivated ground, and the
dwelling was situated in the nook of a wood-covered hill, whither
it seemed to have crept for protection.
"Look up, child," said the Puritan to Ilbrahim, whose faint head
had sunk upon his shoulder, "there is our home."
At the word "home," a thrill passed through the child's frame,
but he continued silent. A few moments brought them to a cottage
door, at which the owner knocked; for at that early period, when
Twice Told Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: February 11th.
Litvinov has been unlucky in his room in the Metropole. It
is small, dark and dirty, and colder than mine. He was
feeling ill and his chest was hurting him, perhaps because of
his speech last night; but while I was there Kamenev rang
him up on the telephone, told him he had a car below, and
would he come at once to the Moscow Soviet to speak on
the international situation! Litvinov tried to excuse himself,
but it was no use, and he said to me that if I wanted to see
Kamenev I had better come along. We found Kamenev in
the hall, and after a few minutes in a little Ford car we were
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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 Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: traveler seemed to have sprung up from the earth, like a peasant who
had laid himself down on the ground to wait till the boat should
start, and had slept till the sound of the horn awakened him. Was he a
thief? or some one belonging to the custom-house or the police?
As soon as the man appeared on the jetty to which the boat was moored,
seven persons who were standing in the stern of the shallop hastened
to sit down on the benches, so as to leave no room for the newcomer.
It was the swift and instinctive working of the aristocratic spirit,
an impulse of exclusiveness that comes from the rich man's heart. Four
of the seven personages belonged to the most aristocratic families in
Flanders. First among them was a young knight with two beautiful
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