| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry: are wisest. They are the magi.
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of THE GIFT OF THE MAGI.
The Gift of the Magi |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: surmounted by waves of brown hair, curling and soft, and that the
head was set on a pair of shoulders decked in military uniform.
Then the brown eyes marched away with the rest of the rear guard,
and the white-bonneted sisters filed out the side door, through
the narrow court, back into the brown convent.
That night Sister Josepha tossed more than usual on her hard bed,
and clasped her fingers often in prayer to quell the wickedness
in her heart. Turn where she would, pray as she might, there was
ever a pair of tender, pitying brown eyes, haunting her
persistently. The squeaky organ at vespers intoned the clank of
military accoutrements to her ears, the white bonnets of the
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: Madame des Grassins without seeming to pay attention to it.
"Monsieur," said Adolphe to Charles with an air which he tried to make
free and easy, "I don't know whether you remember me, but I had the
honor of dancing as your /vis-a-vis/ at a ball given by the Baron de
Nucingen, and--"
"Perfectly; I remember perfectly, monsieur," answered Charles, pleased
to find himself the object of general attention.
"Monsieur is your son?" he said to Madame des Grassins.
The abbe looked at her maliciously.
"Yes, monsieur," she answered.
"Then you were very young when you were in Paris?" said Charles,
Eugenie Grandet |
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 Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: and the nightmare, with her whole ninefold, seems to make it the
favorite scene of her gambols.
The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted
region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of
the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback, without a
head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper,
whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some
nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and
anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of
night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not
confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
