| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: stenographers, models--every grade, type and variety of working
woman, trained and untrained. She never missed a chance to talk
with them. She never failed to learn from them. She had been
one of them, and still was. She was in the position of one who is
on the inside, looking out. Those other women urging this cause
or that were on the outside, striving to peer in.
The Movement struck T. A. Buck's at eleven o'clock Monday
morning. Eleven o'clock Monday morning in the middle of a busy
fall season is not a propitious moment for idle chit-chat. The
three women who stepped out of the lift at the Buck Company's
floor looked very much out of place in that hummingly busy
Emma McChesney & Co. |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Peter Pan by James M. Barrie: his absence. Panic-stricken at the thought of losing Wendy the
lost boys had advanced upon her threateningly.
"It will be worse than before she came," they cried.
"We shan't let her go."
"Let's keep her prisoner."
"Ay, chain her up."
In her extremity an instinct told her to which of them to turn.
"Tootles," she cried, "I appeal to you."
Was it not strange? She appealed to Tootles, quite the
silliest one.
Grandly, however, did Tootles respond. For that one moment he
Peter Pan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: pageant, with various emotions of anger, contempt, or
half-acknowledged fear, but still with an anxious curiosity. The
shapes which now seemed hastening to join the mysterious
procession were recognized rather by striking peculiarities of
dress, or broad characteristics of manner, than by any
perceptible resemblance of features to their prototypes. Their
faces, indeed, were invariably kept in deep shadow. But Doctor
Byles, and other gentlemen who had long been familiar with the
successive rulers of the province, were heard to whisper the
names of Shirley, of Pownall, of Sir Francis Bernard, and of the
well-remembered Hutchinson; thereby confessing that the actors,
Twice Told Tales |
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 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: and calmed by the deep silence that reigned as evening declined at
nightfall, I took confidence. As yet I had not thought; I had only
listened, watched, dreaded; now I regained the faculty of
reflection.
What was I to do? Where to go? Oh, intolerable questions, when I
could do nothing and go nowhere!--when a long way must yet be
measured by my weary, trembling limbs before I could reach human
habitation--when cold charity must be entreated before I could get a
lodging: reluctant sympathy importuned, almost certain repulse
incurred, before my tale could be listened to, or one of my wants
relieved!
Jane Eyre |
