| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy: in the position of lover before.'
'It is a satisfaction, I suppose, to be the first in your heart,'
she said to him, with an attempt to continue her smiling.
'I am going to ask you a question now,' said Knight, somewhat
awkwardly. 'I only ask it in a whimsical way, you know: not with
great seriousness, Elfride. You may think it odd, perhaps.'
Elfride tried desperately to keep the colour in her face. She
could not, though distressed to think that getting pale showed
consciousness of deeper guilt than merely getting red.
'Oh no--I shall not think that,' she said, because obliged to say
something to fill the pause which followed her questioner's
A Pair of Blue Eyes |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Well, what had he to say for himself?"
Gregory's mind was busy, and he had had a moment to pull himself
together.
"We both get off together," he said, more amiably. "That fellow
isn't Jud Clark and never was. He's a doctor, and the nephew of
the old doctor there. They're in practice together."
"Did you see them both?"
"Yes."
Bassett eyed him. Either Gregory was a good actor, or the whole
trail ended there after all. He himself had felt, after his
interview, with Dick, that the scent was false. And there was
The Breaking Point |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: from 1641 to 1717; many of the volumes are wanting as appears
by the numbering, but there still remain eight volumes in folio,
and twenty-four in quarto and in octavo. A dealer in old books
met with them, and knowing me by my sometimes buying of him,
he brought them to me. It seems my uncle must have left them here,
when he went to America, which was about fifty years since.
There are many of his notes in the margins.
<2> Here follow in the margin the words, in brackets, "here
insert it," but the poetry is not given. Mr. Sparks
informs us (Life of Franklin, p. 6) that these volumes
had been preserved, and were in possession of Mrs. Emmons,
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
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 American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: who un-folded himself like a lotus to the moon, or in the little
boarded bunk that was our bedroom, swap-ping tales with Portland
and the old man.
Most of the yarns began in this way:--"Red Larry was a
bull-puncher back of Lone County, Montana," or "There was a man
riding the trail met a jack-rabbit sitting in a cactus," or
"'Bout the time of the San Diego land boom, a woman from
Monterey," etc.
You can try to piece out for yourselves what sort of stories they
were.
IV
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