| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: holier to you. In her all womanhood is martyred. Not she alone,
but all of us are stricken in her house.
GERALD. Hester, Hester, what shall I do?
HESTER. Do you respect the man who is your father?
GERALD. Respect him? I despise him! He is infamous.
HESTER. I thank you for saving me from him last night.
GERALD. Ah, that is nothing. I would die to save you. But you
don't tell me what to do now!
HESTER. Have I not thanked you for saving ME?
GERALD. But what should I do?
HESTER. Ask your own heart, not mine. I never had a mother to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: was magnified, and the figure was the ordinary height of man, he
approached it, and discovered the very object of his search,--the
man whom he had seen for a moment in Valencia, and, after a search
of four years, recognized at the theater.
. . . . .
"You were in quest of me?"--"I was." "Have you anything to inquire
of me?"--"Much." "Speak, then."--"This is no place." "No place!
poor wretch, I am independent of time and place. Speak, if you
have anything to ask or to learn."--"I have many things to ask, but
nothing to learn, I hope, from you." "You deceive yourself, but
you will be undeceived when next we meet."--"And when shall that
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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 Heart of the West by O. Henry: that same deputy-piano machine; only just at present it's shoved up
against a six-hundred-dollar piano that I bought for Marilla as soon
as we was married."
XIV
A CALL LOAN
In those days the cattlemen were the anointed. They were the grandees
of the grass, kings of the kine, lords of the lea, barons of beef and
bone. They might have ridden in golden chariots had their tastes so
inclined. The cattleman was caught in a stampede of dollars. It seemed
to him that he had more money than was decent. But when he had bought
a watch with precious stones set in the case so large that they hurt
Heart of the West |
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 Bucolics by Virgil: Dear child of gods, great progeny of Jove!
See how it totters- the world's orbed might,
Earth, and wide ocean, and the vault profound,
All, see, enraptured of the coming time!
Ah! might such length of days to me be given,
And breath suffice me to rehearse thy deeds,
Nor Thracian Orpheus should out-sing me then,
Nor Linus, though his mother this, and that
His sire should aid- Orpheus Calliope,
And Linus fair Apollo. Nay, though Pan,
With Arcady for judge, my claim contest,
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