| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Light of Western Stars by Zane Grey: convulsed Stewart. In that instant, as her keen gaze searched
his dust-caked face, she met the full, free look of his eyes.
Her own did not fall, though she felt a warmth steal to her
cheeks. Madeline very seldom blushed. And now, conscious of her
sudden color a genuine blush flamed on her face. It was
irritating because it was incomprehensible. She received the
papers from Stewart and thanked him. He bowed, then led the
black down the path toward the corrals.
"When Stewart looks like that he's been riding," said Florence.
"But when his horse looks like that he's sure been burning the
wind."
The Light of Western Stars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Blix by Frank Norris: Ships innumerable nuzzled at the endless line of docks, mast
overspiring mast, and bowsprit overlapping bowsprit, till the eye
was bewildered, as if by the confusion of branches in a leafless
forest. In the distance the mass of rigging resolved itself into
a solid gray blur against the sky. The great hulks, green and
black and slate gray, laid themselves along the docks, straining
leisurely at their mammoth chains, their flanks opened, their
cargoes, as it were their entrails, spewed out in a wild disarray
of crate and bale and box. Sailors and stevedores swarmed them
like vermin. Trucks rolled along the wharves like peals of
ordnance, the horse-hoofs beating the boards like heavy drum-taps.
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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 At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: monstrous speculation, a thing unheard-of. Nothing meanwhile, was
altered at the sign of the Cat and Racket. If Augustine was absent-
minded, if, against all obedience to the domestic code, she stole up
to her room to make signals by means of a jar of flowers, if she
sighed, if she were lost in thought, no one observed it, not even her
mother. This will cause some surprise to those who have entered into
the spirit of the household, where an idea tainted with poetry would
be in startling contrast to persons and things, where no one could
venture on a gesture or a look which would not be seen and analyzed.
Nothing, however, could be more natural: the quiet barque that
navigated the stormy waters of the Paris Exchange, under the flag of
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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 The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: after the wreck."
McKnight slid down in his chair until his weight rested on the small
of his back, and put his feet on the big reading table.
"It is rather a facer," he said. "It's really too good a situation
for a commonplace lawyer. It ought to be dramatized. You can't
agree, of course; and by refusing you run the chance of jail, at
least, and of having Alison brought into publicity, which is out of
the question. You say she was at the Pullman window when you were?"
"Yes; I bought her ticket for her. Gave her lower eleven."
"And you took ten?"
"Lower ten."
The Man in Lower Ten |
