| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: hidden desires, and plucks the sophistry from her wiliest talk like
hairs from a comb, twiddling them sardonically between her thumb and
fingers before letting them float away on the breezes of fundamental
doubt. Long ago Eve's son rang the door-bell of the family residence
in Paradise Park, bearing a strange lady on his arm, whom he
introduced. Eve took her daughter-in-law aside and lifted a classic
eyebrow.
"The Land of Nod," said the bride, languidly flirting the leaf of a
palm. ''I suppose you've been there, of course?"
"Not lately," said Eve, absolutely unstaggered. "Don't you think the
apple-sauce they serve over there is execrable? I rather like that
Options |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: "Put yourself together, Bradshaw," said the lawyer. "This
suspense, I know, is telling upon all of you; but it is now our
intention to make an end of it. Poole, here, and I are going to
force our way into the cabinet. If all is well, my shoulders are
broad enough to bear the blame. Meanwhile, lest anything should
really be amiss, or any malefactor seek to escape by the back, you
and the boy must go round the corner with a pair of good sticks
and take your post at the laboratory door. We give you ten
minutes, to get to your stations."
As Bradshaw left, the lawyer looked at his watch. "And now,
Poole, let us get to ours," he said; and taking the poker under
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: room was like a quiet, starry night, all azure and silver,
flushed in the cast with rosy promise of the dawn. It was, as
the house of a man should be, an expression of the character
and spirit of the master.
He turned to his friends when the song was ended, and
invited them to be seated on the divan at the western end of
the room.
"You have come to-night," said he, looking around the
circle, "at my call, as the faithful scholars of Zoroaster, to
renew your worship and rekindle your faith in the God of Purity,
even as this fire has been rekindled on the altar. We worship
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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 The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: over to Somerville, if you have any logic in your heads or any
human feeling in your hearts. Anything that is brutal, cruel,
heathenish, that makes life hopeless for the most of mankind and
perhaps for entire races, - anything that assumes the necessity of
the extermination of instincts which were given to be regulated, -
no matter by what name you call it, - no matter whether a fakir, or
a monk, or a deacon believes it, - if received, ought to produce
insanity in every well-regulated mind. That condition becomes a
normal one, under the circumstances. I am very much ashamed of
some people for retaining their reason, when they know perfectly
well that if they were not the most stupid or the most selfish of
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
