| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith: flutter. Young, handsome: these he put last; but I put them foremost.
Sensible, good-natured; I like all that. But then reserved and
sheepish; that's much against him. Yet can't he be cured of his
timidity, by being taught to be proud of his wife? Yes, and can't
I--But I vow I'm disposing of the husband before I have secured the
lover.
Enter MISS NEVILLE.
MISS HARDCASTLE. I'm glad you're come, Neville, my dear. Tell me,
Constance, how do I look this evening? Is there anything whimsical
about me? Is it one of my well-looking days, child? Am I in face
to-day?
She Stoops to Conquer |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey: fellows don't understand this thing. You've got Pipe and Girty to deal with.
If you don't know them, you'll be better acquainted by sundown."
"I don't care who they are. Drunken ruffians and savages! That's enough. Will
you help us? We are men of your own race, and we come to you for help. Can you
withhold it?"
"I won't hev nuthin' to do with this bizness. The chiefs hev condemned the
village, an' it'll hev to go. If you fellars hed been careful, no white blood
would hev been spilled. I advise you all to lay low till it's over."
"Will you let me speak to your men, to try and get them to follow me?"
"Heckewelder asked that same thing. He was persistent, and I took a vote fer
him just to show how my men stood. Eighteen of them said they'd follow him;
The Spirit of the Border |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: content, doing more even than they suspect, and perchance better
employed than they could have consciously devised. I am less
affected by their heroism who stood up for half an hour in the front
line at Buena Vista, than by the steady and cheerful valor of the
men who inhabit the snowplow for their winter quarters; who have not
merely the three-o'-clock-in-the-morning courage, which Bonaparte
thought was the rarest, but whose courage does not go to rest so
early, who go to sleep only when the storm sleeps or the sinews of
their iron steed are frozen. On this morning of the Great Snow,
perchance, which is still raging and chilling men's blood, I bear
the muffled tone of their engine bell from out the fog bank of their
Walden |
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 Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: kind of science; they are diplomatists in throwing light
upon the unraveling of complicated intrigues, captains in
divining the issue of battles, and physicians in curing the
sick. Louis XIV., to whom his mother had taught this axiom,
together with many others, understood at once that the
cardinal must be very ill.
Scarcely had Anne of Austria conducted the young queen to
her apartments and taken from her brow the head-dress of
ceremony, when she went to see her son in his cabinet,
where, alone, melancholy and depressed, he was indulging, as
if to exercise his will, in one of those terrible inward
Ten Years Later |
