| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: in wrong, and the mashed hat (I told you Lil used to be the village
peach, didn't I?) and I says:
"`For Gawd's sakes, Lil, does your husband beat you?'
"`Steve!' she shrieks, `beat me! You must be crazy!'
"`Well, if he don't, he ought to. Those clothes are grounds
for divorce,' I says.
"Mr. Guy Peel, it took me just four weeks to get wise to the
fact that the way to cure homesickness is to go home. I spent
those four weeks trying to revolutionize my sister-in-law's house,
dress, kids, husband, wall paper and parlor carpet. I took all the
doilies from under the ornaments and spoke my mind on the subject
Buttered Side Down |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: away. The police were on that man's side," she murmured
tragically. "Another one came too."
"Another - another inspector, do you mean?" asked Ossipon, in great
excitement, and very much in the tone of a scared child.
"I don't know. He came. He looked like a foreigner. He may have
been one of them Embassy people."
Comrade Ossipon nearly collapsed under this new shock.
"Embassy! Are you aware what you are saying? What Embassy? What
on earth do you mean by Embassy?"
"It's that place in Chesham Square. The people he cursed so. I
don't know. What does it matter!"
The Secret Agent |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: countenance, inquiring something from a brighter one of her own
generation; but twice I saw her look up the garden path. None of them
stayed long, although when they were all gone the shadow of the garden
wall had come as far as the arbor; and once again Hortense sat alone
behind the table, leaning back with arms folded, and looking straight in
front of her. At last she stirred, and rose slowly, and then, with a
movement which was the perfection of timidity, began to advance, as John,
with his Aunt Eliza, came along the path. To John, Hortense with familiar
yet discreet brightness gave a left hand, as she waited for the old lady;
and then the old lady went through with it. What that embrace of
acknowledgment cost her cannot be measured, and during its process John
|
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 Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: When he came back, she lay shrivelled up among the pillows.
He heard no sound of weeping, but the shoulders shook. He darkened the
room completely.
When Gregory went to his sofa that night, she told him to wake her early;
she would be dressed before breakfast. Nevertheless, when morning came,
she said it was a little cold, and lay all day watching her clothes upon
the chair. Still she sent for her oxen in the country; they would start on
Monday and go down to the Colony.
In the afternoon she told him to open the window wide, and draw the bed
near it.
It was a leaden afternoon, the dull rain-clouds rested close to the roofs
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