| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: saw fit. To this the cacique answered that the words were wise,
but that she should have spoken them before, for now the priests
had got hold of me, and it was hopeless to save me from their grip.
'Nay,' answered Marina, 'there is this to be said. Quetzal, the
god to whom this Teule is to be offered, was a white man,* and it
may well happen that this man is one of his children. Will it
please the god that his child should be offered to him? At the
least, if the god is not angered, Montezuma will certainly be
wroth, and wreak a vengeance on you and on the priests.'
* Quetzal, or more properly Quetzalcoatl, was the divinity who is
fabled to have taught the natives of Anahuac all the useful arts,
Montezuma's Daughter |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: Stourbridge Fair, which was then in its height.
If it is a diversion worthy a book to treat of trifles, such as the
gaiety of Bury Fair, it cannot be very unpleasant, especially to
the trading part of the world, to say something of this fair, which
is not only the greatest in the whole nation, but in the world;
nor, if I may believe those who have seen the mall, is the fair at
Leipzig in Saxony, the mart at Frankfort-on-the-Main, or the fairs
at Nuremberg, or Augsburg, any way to compare to this fair at
Stourbridge.
It is kept in a large corn-field, near Casterton, extending from
the side of the river Cam, towards the road, for about half a mile
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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 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 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 Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: had given up her home, sold it--the pretty place with the
hospitable yard that used to seem to be fairly spilling over with
wholesome, boisterous boys and chatty, beribboned little girls.
She was rooming with a family, taking her meals at a restaurant,
keeping up her zest in tomorrow by running a shop. She thought of
how her friend, Mrs. Robinson, gracious, democratic woman of wide
sympathies that she was, had lived alone after David Robinson's
death, taking his place as president of the bank, during the
years her only daughter, Janet, had been off at college and later
travelling around the country "on the stage"--of all things for a
daughter of Fallon. When hadn't the town been full of these
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