| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: my trombone. Wait only."
To right and left of us people bent over and whispered admiration down
Fraulein Sonia's neck. She bowed in the grand style.
"I am always successful," she said to me. "You see, when I act I AM. In
Vienna, in the plays of Ibsen we had so many bouquets that the cook had
three in the kitchen. But it is difficult here. There is so little magic.
Do you not feel it? There is none of that mysterious perfume which floats
almost as a visible thing from the souls of the Viennese audiences. My
spirit starves for want of that." She leaned forward, chin on hand.
"Starves," she repeated.
The Professor appeared with his trombone, blew into it, held it up to one
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, 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 third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: Seward, the son of his future Secretary of State, with an
important message from his father. A plot had been discovered to
do violence to, and perhaps kill, the President-elect as he
passed through the city of Baltimore. Mr. Seward and General
Scott, the venerable hero of the Mexican War, who was now at the
head of the army, begged him to run no risk, but to alter his
plans so that a portion of his party might pass through Baltimore
by a night train without previous notice. The seriousness of the
warning was doubled by the fact that Mr. Lincoln had just been
told of a similar, if not exactly the same, danger, by a Chicago
detective employed in Baltimore by one of the great railroad
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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 My Antonia by Willa Cather: In the middle of a crashing waltz, d'Arnault suddenly began
to play softly, and, turning to one of the men who stood
behind him, whispered, `Somebody dancing in there.'
He jerked his bullet-head toward the dining-room. `I hear
little feet--girls, I spect.'
Anson Kirkpatrick mounted a chair and peeped over the transom.
Springing down, he wrenched open the doors and ran out into
the dining-room. Tiny and Lena, Antonia and Mary Dusak,
were waltzing in the middle of the floor. They separated
and fled toward the kitchen, giggling.
Kirkpatrick caught Tiny by the elbows. `What's the matter
My Antonia |
