| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: Mr. Gathergold, was close at hand, but the poet, with his
carpet-bag on his arm, inquired at once where Ernest dwelt, and
was resolved to be accepted as his guest.
Approaching the door, he there found the good old man, holding a
volume in his hand, which alternately he read, and then, with a
finger between the leaves, looked lovingly at the Great Stone
Face.
"Good evening," said the poet. "Can you give a traveller a
night's lodging?"
"Willingly," answered Ernest; and then he added, smiling,
"Methinks I never saw the Great Stone Face look so hospitably at
The Snow Image |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: duc is right!" cried the legal organ. "There are time limitations.
Where should we all be if we had to search into the origin of
fortunes? This is simply an affair of conscience. If you must
absolutely carry the case before some tribunal, go to that of the
confessional."
The Code incarnate ceased speaking, sat down, and drank a glass of
champagne. The man charged with the duty of explaining the gospel, the
good priest, rose.
"God has made us all frail beings," he said firmly. "If you love the
heiress of that crime, marry her; but content yourself with the
property she derives from her mother; give that of the father to 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 The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: The main room was very high to beams and a grass-thatched roof,
with a well-brushed earth floor covered with mats. It contained
comfortable furniture, a small library, a good phonograph,
tables, lamps and the like. When the mountain chill descended,
Horne lit a fire in a coal-oil can with a perforated bottom. What
little smoke was produced by the clean burning wood lost itself
far aloft. Leopard skins and other trophies hung on the wall. We
dined in another room at a well-appointed table. After dinner we
sat up until the unheard of hour of ten o'clock discussing at
length many matters that interested us. Horne told us of his
personal bodyguard consisting of one son from each chief of his
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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 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: funeral, and sat in the first carriage along with little Virginia.
Then came the United States Minister and his wife, then Washington
and the three boys, and in the last carriage was Mrs. Umney. It
was generally felt that, as she had been frightened by the ghost
for more than fifty years of her life, she had a right to see the
last of him. A deep grave had been dug in the corner of the
churchyard, just under the old yew-tree, and the service was read
in the most impressive manner by the Rev. Augustus Dampier. When
the ceremony was over, the servants, according to an old custom
observed in the Canterville family, extinguished their torches,
and, as the coffin was being lowered into the grave, Virginia
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