| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Wednesday I had my interview with her. Thursday and Friday were
uneventful, save as they marked improvement in our patient.
Gertrude spent almost all the time with her, and the two had
grown to be great friends. But certain things hung over me
constantly; the coroner's inquest on the death of Arnold
Armstrong, to be held Saturday, and the arrival of Mrs. Armstrong
and young Doctor Walker, bringing the body of the dead president
of the Traders' Bank. We had not told Louise of either death.
Then, too, I was anxious about the children. With their mother's
inheritance swept away in the wreck of the bank, and with their
love affairs in a disastrous condition, things could scarcely be
The Circular Staircase |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: mythologies, not learned in the schools, that delights us. As the
wild duck is more swift and beautiful than the tame, so is the
wild--the mallard--thought, which 'mid falling dews wings its way
above the fens. A truly good book is something as natural, and as
unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild-flower
discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the
East. Genius is a light which makes the darkness visible, like
the lightning's flash, which perchance shatters the temple of
knowledge itself--and not a taper lighted at the hearthstone of
the race, which pales before the light of common day.
English literature, from the days of the minstrels to the Lake
Walking |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: That was not to be. He was not given the time.
But here is the dog--an old dog now. Broad and low on his bandy
paws, with a black head on a white body and a ridiculous black
spot at the other end of him, he provokes, when he walks abroad,
smiles not altogether unkind. Grotesque and engaging in the
whole of his appearance, his usual attitudes are meek, but his
temperament discloses itself unexpectedly pugnacious in the
presence of his kind. As he lies in the firelight, his head well
up, and a fixed, far-away gaze directed at the shadows of the
room, he achieves a striking nobility of pose in the calm
consciousness of an unstained life. He has brought up one baby,
Some Reminiscences |
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 A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: low-bowing groups of servants and disappeared in the hotel,
exhibiting to us only the backs of their heads, and then
the show was over.
It appears to be as difficult to land a monarch as it
is to launch a ship.
But as to Heidelberg. The weather was growing pretty warm,
--very warm, in fact. So we left the valley and took
quarters at the Schloss Hotel, on the hill, above the Castle.
Heidelberg lies at the mouth of a narrow gorge--a gorge
the shape of a shepherd's crook; if one looks up it he
perceives that it is about straight, for a mile and a half,
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