| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: There goes a strange-looking woman! What an odd gown
she has got on! How old-fashioned it is! Look at the back."
After some time they received an offer of tea from
one of their neighbours; it was thankfully accepted,
and this introduced a light conversation with the gentleman
who offered it, which was the only time that anybody spoke
to them during the evening, till they were discovered
and joined by Mr. Allen when the dance was over.
"Well, Miss Morland," said he, directly, "I hope
you have had an agreeable ball."
"Very agreeable indeed," she replied,
Northanger Abbey |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: toward it. Then, with a half smile, he picked it up and walked to
the window with it. He was still smiling, half boyishly, as he put
out his light and got into bed. It had occurred to him that the
milkman's flivver, driving in at the break of dawn, would encounter
considerable glass.
By morning, after a bad night, he had made a sort of double-headed
resolution, that he was through with booze, as he termed it, and
that he would find out how he stood with Elizabeth. But for a day
or two no opportunity presented itself. When he called there was
always present some grave-faced sympathizing visitor, dark clad
and low of voice, and over the drawing-room would hang the
The Breaking Point |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: and Mike Scully was a good man to stand in with. A note signed by him
was equal to a job any time at the packing houses; and also he employed
a good many men himself, and worked them only eight hours a day, and paid
them the highest wages. This gave him many friends--all of whom he had
gotten together into the "War Whoop League," whose clubhouse you might
see just outside of the yards. It was the biggest clubhouse, and the
biggest club, in all Chicago; and they had prizefights every now and then,
and cockfights and even dogfights. The policemen in the district all
belonged to the league, and instead of suppressing the fights, they sold
tickets for them. The man that had taken Jurgis to be naturalized was
one of these "Indians," as they were called; and on election day there
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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 Pericles by William Shakespeare: they made to us to help them, when, well-a-day, we could scarce
help ourselves.
THIRD FISHERMAN.
Nay, master, said not I as much when I saw the porpus how he
bounced and tumbled? they say they're half fish, half flesh:
a plague on them, they ne'er come but I look to be washed.
Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea.
FIRST FISHERMAN.
Why, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones: I
can compare our rich misers to nothing so fitly as to a whale;
a' plays and tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at
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