| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: own spring-house without having a posse after me to bring me
back?"
"Ordinarily," said Mr. Thoburn, with his snaky eyes on me, "I
think I may say that you might go almost anywhere without my
turning out to recover you. But Mrs. Moody is having hysterics."
Mrs. Moody! I'd forgotten the Moodys!
"She is convinced that you have drowned yourself, head down, in
the spring," Mr. Pierce said in his pleasant way. "You've been
gone two hours, you know."
He took my arm and turned me toward the house. I was dazed.
"In answer to your urgent inquiry," Mr. Thoburn called after me,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: is such as I have described.'
I said, 'O thou stranger woman, thou sayest well; but, assuming Love to be
such as you say, what is the use of him to men?' 'That, Socrates,' she
replied, 'I will attempt to unfold: of his nature and birth I have already
spoken; and you acknowledge that love is of the beautiful. But some one
will say: Of the beautiful in what, Socrates and Diotima?--or rather let
me put the question more clearly, and ask: When a man loves the beautiful,
what does he desire?' I answered her 'That the beautiful may be his.'
'Still,' she said, 'the answer suggests a further question: What is given
by the possession of beauty?' 'To what you have asked,' I replied, 'I have
no answer ready.' 'Then,' she said, 'let me put the word "good" in the
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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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: was when they advised him to withdraw the suit that he got
desperate. You see, he'd borrowed most of the money he lost in
the Blue Star, and he was up a tree. That's why he shot himself
when they told him he had no show."
The horror was sweeping over Mary in great, deafening waves.
"He shot himself? He killed himself because of THAT? "
"Well, he didn't kill himself, exactly. He dragged on two months
before he died." Parvis emitted the statement as unemotionally
as a gramophone grinding out its "record."
"You mean that he tried to kill himself, and failed? And tried
again?"
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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 Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: house parties, as small town younger generations are apt to. When
Ted went to high school half the boys in his little clique spent
their after-school hours dashing up and down Main street in their
big, glittering cars, sitting slumped down on the middle of their
spines in front of the steering wheel, their sleeves rolled up,
their hair combed a militant pompadour. One or the other of them
always took Ted along. It is fearfully easy to develop a taste for
that kind of thing. As he grew older, the taste took root and
became a habit.
Ted came out after serving his term, still handsome, spite of
all that story-writers may have taught to the contrary. But we'll
Buttered Side Down |
