| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: in, covered with snow, and we had coffee and eggs all over again.
Well, they stayed for an hour, and Mr. Sam talked himself black
in the face and couldn't get anywhere. For the Dickys refused to
be separated, and Mrs. Dick wouldn't tell her father, and Miss
Patty wouldn't do it for her, and the minute Mr. Sam made a
suggestion that sounded rational Mrs. Dick would cry and say she
didn't care to live, anyhow, and she wished she had died of
ptomaine poisoning the time she ate the bad oysters at school.
So finally Mr. Sam gave up and said he washed his hands of the
whole affair, and that he was going to make another start on his
wedding journey, and if they wanted to be a pair of fools it
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: showed tawdry, even the gay-hued flags fluttered sadly to Odalie.
Mardi Gras was a tiresome day, after all, she sighed, and Tante
Louise agreed with her for once.
Six o'clock had come, the hour when all masks must be removed.
The long red rays of the setting sun glinted athwart the
many-hued costumes of the revellers trooping unmasked homeward to
rest for the night's last mad frolic.
Down Toulouse Street there came the merriest throng of all.
Young men and women in dainty, fairy-like garb, dancers, and
dresses of the picturesque Empire, a butterfly or two and a dame
here and there with powdered hair and graces of olden time.
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: trees, a blind old man with one hand resting on the shoulder of a
child who walked before him, while with the other he carried a kind of
cithara of black wood against his hip. The eunuchs, slaves, and women
had been scrupulously sent away; no one might know the mystery that
was preparing.
Taanach kindled four tripods filled with strobus and cadamomum in the
corners of the apartment; then she unfolded large Babylonian hangings,
and stretched them on cords all around the room, for Salammbo did not
wish to be seen even by the walls. The kinnor-player squatted behind
the door and the young boy standing upright applied a reed flute to
his lips. In the distance the roar of the streets was growing feebler,
Salammbo |
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 The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: not possible. Go drown yourself, and there goes my last
chance--the last chance of a poor miserable beast, earning a
crust to feed his family. I can't do nothing but sail ships, and
I've no papers. And here I get a chance, and you go back on me!
Ah, you've no family, and that's where the trouble is!'
'I have indeed,' said Herrick.
'Yes, I know,' said the captain, 'you think so. But no man's
got a family till he's got children. It's only the kids count.
There's something about the little shavers ... I can't talk of
them. And if you thought a cent about this father that I hear
you talk of, or that sweetheart you were writing to this morning,
|
