| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems by T. S. Eliot: Sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn.
When evening quickens faintly in the street,
Wakening the appetites of life in some
And to others bringing the Boston Evening Transcript,
I mount the steps and ring the bell, turning
Wearily, as one would turn to nod good-bye to Rochefoucauld,
If the street were time and he at the end of the street,
And I say, "Cousin Harriet, here is the Boston Evening Transcript."
Aunt Helen
Miss Helen Slingsby was my maiden aunt,
And lived in a small house near a fashionable square
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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 Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart: there was no end of the war in sight; it gave promise now of going on
indefinitely.
Joifre had said, "I nibble them." But to nibble a hole in the Germany
Army might take years. They had sent Sara Lee for a few months. How
about keeping her there indefinitely?
Oddly enough, it was Harvey's sister Belle who made the only protest
against the recall.
"Of course, I want her back," she said slowly. "You'd understand better
if you had to live with Harvey. I'm sorry, Mrs. Gregory, that he spoke
to you as he did, but he's nearly crazy." She eyed the assembly with
her tired shrewd eyes. "I'm no talker," she went on, "but Sara Lee has
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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 Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: stood silent, but now and again some woman whose husband or son had
perished in the siege, would hiss a curse at us.
Alas! how different was our state this day to what it had been when
not a year before we entered the City of Pines for the first time.
Then we were escorted by an army ten thousand strong, then
musicians had sung before us and our path was strewn with flowers.
And now! Now we came two fugitives from the vengeance of the
Teules, I borne in a litter by four tired soldiers, while Otomie,
the princess of this people, still clad in her wanton's robe, at
which the women mocked, for she had been able to come by no other,
tramped at my side, since there were none to carry her, and the
Montezuma's Daughter |
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 Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: Brigitte. She, with her crude good sense and egotism, pointed out to
him that by thus hastening the period formerly agreed upon for the
marriage, they committed the blunder of disarming themselves; they
could not be sure that when the election took place la Peyrade would
put the same zeal into preparing for it. It might be," said the old
maid, "just as it has been about the cross."
"There's this difference," said Thuillier; "the cross doesn't depend
directly upon la Peyrade, whereas the influence he exerts in the 12th
arrondissement he can employ as he will."
"And suppose he willed, after we have feathered his nest," said
Brigitte, "to work his influence for his own election? He is very
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