| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Outside in the rain.
As for Death, he understands,
And he will come again.
Therefore, till your wits are clear,
Flourish and be quiet -- here.
But a devil at each ear
Will be a strain?
Past a doubt they will indeed,
More than you have earned.
I say that because you need
Ablution, being burned?
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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 Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. Wells: I've never met her. Never set eyes on her. For all I know she
may want to make a scene." There was infinite dismay in her
voice.
Dr. Martineau was grave. "You would rather not receive her?"
"I don't want to refuse her. I don't want even to seem
heartless. I understand, of course, she has a sort of claim.
" She sobbed her reluctant admission. "I know it. I
know. . . . There was much between them."
Dr. Martineau pressed the limp hand upon the little tea
table. "I understand, dear lady," he said. "I understand. Now
. . . suppose _I_ were to write to her and arrange--I do not
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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 The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: comfortably a good deal of time. Throughout the day
he was under the almost constant observation of people
who were calling him "master" in their minds, and watching
to see how, in the smallest details of deportment,
a "master" carried himself, and the consciousness of this
alone amounted to a kind of vocation. The house itself
made demands upon him nearly as definite as those of
the servants. It was a house of huge rooms, high ceilings,
and grandiose fireplaces and stairways, which had seemed
to him like a royal palace when he first beheld it,
and still produced upon him an effect of undigestible
The Market-Place |
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 Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: to stand on, or perish in the attempt; and Holmes would watch,
through the quiet, bright mornings, the frantic ambition of the
successful aspirant with an amused smile.
"One 'd thenk," said Lois, sagely, "a chicken never stood on a
wall before, to hear 'em, or a hen laid an egg."
Nor did Holmes smile once because the chicken burlesqued man: his
thought was too single for that yet. It was long, too, before he
thought of the people who came in quietly to see him as anything
but shadows, or wished for them to come again. Lois, perhaps,
was the most real thing in life then to him: growing conscious,
day by day, as he watched her, of his old life over the gulf.
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
