| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: sausages. Great rosy mounds of them filled counters and cases.
Sausage! Sneer, you pate de foies grasers! But may you know the
day when hunger will have you. And on that day may you run into
linked temptation in the form of Braunschweiger Metwurst. May you
know the longing that causes the eyes to glaze at the sight of
Thuringer sausage, and the mouth to water at the scent of Cervelat
wurst, and the fingers to tremble at the nearness of smoked liver.
Jennie stumbled on, through the smells and the sights. That
nibble of cheese had been like a drop of human blood to a
man-eating tiger. It made her bold, cunning, even while it
maddened. She stopped at this counter and demanded a slice of
Buttered Side Down |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: when under the dominion of folly, and having now grown wise and temperate,
does not want to do as he did or to be as he was before. And so he runs
away and is constrained to be a defaulter; the oyster-shell (In allusion to
a game in which two parties fled or pursued according as an oyster-shell
which was thrown into the air fell with the dark or light side uppermost.)
has fallen with the other side uppermost--he changes pursuit into flight,
while the other is compelled to follow him with passion and imprecation,
not knowing that he ought never from the first to have accepted a demented
lover instead of a sensible non-lover; and that in making such a choice he
was giving himself up to a faithless, morose, envious, disagreeable being,
hurtful to his estate, hurtful to his bodily health, and still more hurtful
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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 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: fresh images. He listened, and heard in a strange, mad whisper
words repeated: "I did not appreciate it, did not make enough of
it. I did not appreciate it, did not make enough of it."
"What's this? Am I going out of my mind?" he said to himself.
"Perhaps. What makes men go out of their minds; what makes men
shoot themselves?" he answered himself, and opening his eyes, he
saw with wonder an embroidered cushion beside him, worked by
Varya, his brother's wife. He touched the tassel of the cushion,
and tried to think of Varya, of when he had seen her last. But to
think of anything extraneous was an agonizing effort. "No, I must
sleep!" He moved the cushion up, and pressed his head into it,
Anna Karenina |
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 Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: And shook the country folks in bed,
And tore the trees and tossed the ships,
He lingered and he licked his lips.
Lo, from within, a hush! the host
Briefly expressed the evening's toast;
And lo, before the lips were dry,
The Deacon rising to reply!
'Here in this house which once I built,
Papered and painted, carved and gilt,
And out of which, to my content,
I netted seventy-five per cent.;
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