| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Frances Waldeaux by Rebecca Davis: you!" she said.
When George came back in the evening, he found her
walking with the boy in her arms on the broad piazzas.
"I really think he knows that he has come home, George!"
she exclaimed. "See how he laughs! And he liked the
dogs and horses just as Lisa thought he would. I am glad
it is such a beautiful home for him. Look at that slope
to the bay! There is no nobler park in England! And the
house is as big as most of their palaces, and much more
comfortable!"
"Give the child to Colette, mother, and listen to 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 Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: away.
At Felipe's words the voices had stopped, as a clock finishes striking.
Silence, strained like expectation, filled the Padre's soul. But in place
of the voices came old sights of home again, the waving trees at Aranhal;
then it would be Rachel for a moment, declaiming tragedy while a houseful
of faces that he knew by name watched her; and through all the panorama
rang the pleasant laugh of Gaston. For a while in the evening the Padre
sat at his Erard playing Trovatore. Later, in his sleepless bed he lay,
saying now and then: "To die at home! Surely I may be granted at least
this." And he listened for the inner voices. But they were not speaking
any more, and the black hole of silence grew more dreadful to him than
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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 Iliad by Homer: of mail, filling the Danaans with terror. Sarpedon was glad when
he saw him coming, and besought him, saying, "Son of Priam, let
me not be here to fall into the hands of the Danaans. Help me,
and since I may not return home to gladden the hearts of my wife
and of my infant son, let me die within the walls of your city."
Hector made him no answer, but rushed onward to fall at once upon
the Achaeans and kill many among them. His comrades then bore
Sarpedon away and laid him beneath Jove's spreading oak tree.
Pelagon, his friend and comrade, drew the spear out of his thigh,
but Sarpedon fainted and a mist came over his eyes. Presently he
came to himself again, for the breath of the north wind as it
The Iliad |
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 Confidence by Henry James: Bernard was the restless and professionless mortal that we know,
wandering in life from one vague experiment to another,
constantly gratified and never satisfied, to whom no imperious
finality had as yet presented itself; and, nevertheless, for a time
he contrived to limit his horizon to the passing hour, and to make
a good many hours pass in the drawing-room of a demonstrative
flirt.
For Mrs. Gordon was a flirt; that had become tolerably obvious.
Bernard had known of old that Blanche Evers was one, and two or three months'
observation of his friend's wife assured him that she did not judge
a certain ethereal coquetry to be inconsistent with the conjugal character.
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