| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: leave Harmony to her fate.
"Give me your mother's address," she demanded.
"Certainly not."
"You absolutely refuse to save yourself?"
"From what? From Peter? There are many worse people than Peter to
save myself from, Mrs. Boyer--uncharitable people, and--and cruel
people."
Mrs. Boyer shrugged her plump shoulders.
"Meaning me!" she retorted. "My dear child, people are always
cruel who try to save us from ourselves."
Unluckily for Harmony, one of Anna's specious arguments must pop
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: the bottom of the table. The Captain, exceedingly incensed at
this freedom, endeavoured to shake Allan from him with violence;
but, powerful as he was, he proved in the struggle inferior to
the gigantic mountaineer, who threw him off with such violence,
that after reeling a few paces, he fell at full length, and the
vaulted hall rang with the clash of his armour. When he arose,
his first action was to draw his sword and to fly at Allan, who,
with folded arms, seemed to await his onset with the most
scornful indifference. Lord Menteith and his attendants
interposed to preserve peace, while the Highlanders, snatching
weapons from the wall, seemed prompt to increase the broil.
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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 Camille by Alexandre Dumas: times, which unfortunately both pointed to the same hour.
When it struck half past ten, I said to myself that it was time
to go.
I lived at that time in the Rue de Provence; I followed the Rue
du Mont-Blanc, crossed the Boulevard, went up the Rue
Louis-le-Grand, the Rue de Port-Mahon, and the Rue d'Antin. I
looked up at Marguerite's windows. There was a light. I rang. I
asked the porter if Mlle. Gautier was at home. He replied that
she never came in before eleven or a quarter past eleven. I
looked at my watch. I intended to come quite slowly, and I had
come in five minutes from the Rue de Provence to the Rue d'Antin.
Camille |
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 My Antonia by Willa Cather: to see it at all. The little trees were insignificant against the grass.
It seemed as if the grass were about to run over them, and over the plum-patch
behind the sod chicken-house.
As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water
is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the colour
of winestains, or of certain seaweeds when they are first washed up.
And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow,
to be running.
I had almost forgotten that I had a grandmother, when she came out,
her sunbonnet on her head, a grain-sack in her hand, and asked me if I
did not want to go to the garden with her to dig potatoes for dinner.
My Antonia |
