| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: and their isolation.
As the paddle-wheels began to turn, and wharves
and shipping to recede through the veil of heat, it
seemed to Archer that everything in the old familiar
world of habit was receding also. He longed to ask
Madame Olenska if she did not have the same feeling:
the feeling that they were starting on some long voyage
from which they might never return. But he was afraid
to say it, or anything else that might disturb the delicate
balance of her trust in him. In reality he had no
wish to betray that trust. There had been days and
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: measurements. There were persons to be observed, singly or in
couples, bending toward objects in out-of-the-way corners with
their hands on their knees and their heads nodding quite as with
the emphasis of an excited sense of smell. When they were two they
either mingled their sounds of ecstasy or melted into silences of
even deeper import, so that there were aspects of the occasion that
gave it for Marcher much the air of the "look round," previous to a
sale highly advertised, that excites or quenches, as may be, the
dream of acquisition. The dream of acquisition at Weatherend would
have had to be wild indeed, and John Marcher found himself, among
such suggestions, disconcerted almost equally by the presence of
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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 Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: "Yes, what of her?"
"I met her, three days ago, at the ball of the Neapolitan ambassador,
and I am passionately in love with her. For pity's sake tell me her
name. No one was able--"
"That is Mademoiselle Victorine Taillefer."
I grew dizzy.
"Her step-mother," continued my neighbor, "has lately taken her from a
convent, where she was finishing, rather late in the day, her
education. For a long time her father refused to recognize her. She
comes here for the first time. She is very beautiful and very rich."
These words were accompanied by a sardonic smile.
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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 Common Sense by Thomas Paine: hut if the whole continent must take up arms, if every man must be a soldier,
it is scarcely worth our while to fight against a contemptible ministry only.
Dearly, dearly, do we pay for the repeal of the acts, if that is all
we fight for; for in a just estimation, it is as great a folly to pay
a Bunker-hill price for law, as for land. As I have always considered
the independancy of this continent, as an event, which sooner or later
must arrive, so from the late rapid progress of the continent to maturity,
the event could not be far off. Wherefore, on the breaking out of hostilities,
it was not worth while to have disputed a matter, which time would have
finally redressed, unless we meant to be in earnest; otherwise, it is like
wasting an estate on a suit at law, to regulate the trespasses of a tenant,
Common Sense |
