| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: O golden hair that like a miser's treasure
In its abundance overflows the measure!
O graceful form, that cloudlike floatest on
With the soft, undulating gait of one
Who moveth as if motion were a pleasure!
By what name shall I call thee? Nymph or Muse,
Callirrhoe or Urania? Some sweet name
Whose every syllable is a caress
Would best befit thee; but I cannot choose,
Nor do I care to choose; for still the same,
Nameless or named, will be thy loveliness.
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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 Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: telegraph. He would have a pack of newspaper hounds at his heels
within a few hours. The police, too. No, it wouldn't do.
The next day he got a job as a taxicab driver, and that night and
every night thereafter he went back to West Madison Street and
picked up one or more of the derelicts there and bought them food.
He developed quite a system about it. He waited until he saw a
man stop outside an eating-house look in and then pass on. But
one night he got rather a shock. For the young fellow he accosted
looked at him first with suspicion, which was not unusual, and
later with amazement.
"Captain Livingstone!" he said, and checked his hand as it was
The Breaking Point |
| 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: preceded by a cloud of smoke.
"It went terribly against the grain," he said, with a
rueful laugh. "I'd sworn to let no Jew off with an inch
of hide left on him--and here three of them have been
wheedled out of my grip already."
"Jews?" exclaimed the Marquis, much puzzled.
"Did you--did you think Fromentin was a Jew? God bless
me! he's no more one than I am! Why, not even so much,
for there IS a Herschell in my pedigree. Why, dear man,
they were Crusaders!"
Thorpe smiled somewhat sheepishly. "I never noticed much,"
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 Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: after seeking all over the earth, King Pluto's servant found
only a single pomegranate, and that so dried up as not to be
worth eating. Nevertheless, since there was no better to be
had, he brought this dry, old withered pomegranate home to the
palace.
put it on a magnificent golden salver, and carried it up to
Proserpina. Now, it happened, curiously enough, that, just as
the servant was bringing the pomegranate into the back door of
the palace, our friend Quicksilver had gone up the front steps,
on his errand to get Proserpina away from King Pluto.
As soon as Proserpina saw the pomegranate on the golden salver,
Tanglewood Tales |
