| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: loved and lost, and so had achieved a sentimental
distinction. Imogen always had admirers. Eliza
had been courted at intervals half-heartedly by a
widower, and Susan had had a few fleeting chances.
But Jane was the only one who had been really defi-
nite in her heart affairs. As for Annie, nobody ever
thought of her in such a connection. It was supposed
that Annie had no thought of marriage, that she was
foreordained to remain unwed and keep house for
her father and Benny.
When Jane said that dear Annie did not realize
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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 Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: in a wood, because she had never been so entirely alone in spirit
as she was now. She seemed almost to be apart from herself--a
vacuous duplicate only. The recent self of physical animation and
clear intentions was not there.
Sometimes a bough from an adjoining tree was swayed so low as to
smite the roof in the manner of a gigantic hand smiting the mouth
of an adversary, to be followed by a trickle of rain, as blood
from the wound. To all this weather Giles must be more or less
exposed; how much, she did not know.
At last Grace could hardly endure the idea of such a hardship in
relation to him. Whatever he was suffering, it was she who had
The Woodlanders |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: Amid the rush and reed,
See the lean fishes that are fain
Upon dead men to feed.
Sweet is the page that lieth there,
(Cloth of gold is goodly prey,)
See the black ravens in the air,
Black, O black as the night are they.
What do they there so stark and dead?
(There is blood upon her hand)
Why are the lilies flecked with red?
(There is blood on the river sand.)
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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 Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: goes off into a corner with a deputy, to whom he talks in a low
voice]. "There are forty thousand government clerks in France. The
average of their salaries is fifteen hundred francs. Multiply forty
thousand by fifteen hundred and you have sixty millions. Now, in the
first place, a publicist would call the attention of Russia and China
(where all government officials steal), also that of Austria, the
American republics, and indeed that of the whole world, to the fact
that for this price France possesses the most inquisitorial, fussy,
ferreting, scribbling, paper-blotting, fault-finding old housekeeper
of a civil service on God's earth. Not a copper farthing of the
nation's money is spent or hoarded that is not ordered by a note,
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