| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: would be millionaires some day, bought her lace, and gave it to
their servants for Christmas presents.
As for Tony, when she was slow in opening his oysters or in
cooking his red beans and spaghetti, he roared at her, and
prefixed picturesque adjectives to her lace, which made her hide
it under her apron with a fearsome look in her dull eyes.
He hated her in a lusty, roaring fashion, as a healthy beefy boy
hates a sick cat and torments it to madness. When she displeased
him, he beat her, and knocked her frail form on the floor. The
children could tell when this had happened. Her eyes would be
red, and there would be blue marks on her face and neck. "Poor
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: the rest doing more, prettiness of sentiment will be
forgotten. To dock the skulker's food is not enough; many
will rather eat haws and starve on petty pilferings than put
their shoulder to the wheel for one hour daily. For such as
these, then, the whip will be in the overseer's hand; and his
own sense of justice and the superintendence of a chaotic
popular assembly will be the only checks on its employment.
Now, you may be an industrious man and a good citizen, and
yet not love, nor yet be loved by, Dr. Fell the inspector.
It is admitted by private soldiers that the disfavour of a
sergeant is an evil not to be combated; offend the sergeant,
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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 The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: drove the fork full at the intruder's chest. He had a vague idea
that so he might stab the man to silence. But the man shouted
loudly as the prongs pierced him and drove him backward, and
instantly there was a sound of feet running across the yard.
'Bombs,' cried the man upon the ground, struggling with the
prongs in his hand, and as Pestovitch staggered forward into view
with the force of his own thrust, he was shot through the body by
one of the two new-comers.
The man on the ground was badly hurt but plucky. 'Bombs,' he
repeated, and struggled up into a kneeling position and held his
electric torch full upon the face of the king. 'Shoot them,' he
The Last War: A World Set Free |
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 La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: played for an hour, while she--poor woman and happy mother--lay on a
long sofa in the summer-house, so placed that she could look out over
the soft, ever-changing country of Touraine, a land that you learn to
see afresh in all the thousand chance effects produced by daylight and
sky and the time of year.
The children scampered through the orchard, scrambled about the
terraces, chased the lizards, scarcely less nimble than they;
investigating flowers and seeds and insects, continually referring all
questions to their mother, running to and fro between the garden and
the summer-house. Children have no need of toys in the country,
everything amuses them.
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