| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: wild words and Spenser's melancholy, till he came to the conclusion
that there was some mysterious connection between cleverness and
unhappiness, and thanking his stars that he was neither scholar,
courtier, nor poet, said grace over his lump of horseflesh when it
arrived, devoured it as if it had been venison, and then returned
to his pacing up and down; but this time in silence, for the night
was drawing on, and there was no need to tell the Spaniards that
any one was awake and watching.
So he began to think about his mother, and how she might be
spending her Christmas; and then about Frank, and wondered at what
grand Court festival he was assisting, amid bright lights and sweet
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Rivers to the Sea by Sara Teasdale: Past the maze of trim bronze doors,
Steadily we ascend.
I cling to you
Conscious of the chasm under us,
And a terrible whirring deafens my ears.
The flight is ended.
We pass thru a door leading onto the ledge--
RIVERS TO THE SEA
Wind, night and space
Oh terrible height
Why have we sought you?
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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 Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: selfish and they haven't enough virtue to make a fuss about."
"I'd be a shining light in the non-provider class," he said, and
picking up his old cap he opened the door. Miss Patty herself
was coming up the path.
She was flushed from the cold air and from hurrying, and I don't
know that I ever saw her look prettier. When she came into the
light we could both see that she was dressed for dinner. Her fur
coat was open at the neck, and she had only a lace <133>scarf
over her head. (She was a disbeliever in colds, anyhow, and all
winter long she slept with the windows open and the steam-heat
off!)
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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 Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: ecstasy of the true beauty that she loved so well. In no
questioning, sad pallor of sombre leaves or gray lichens:
throbbed out rather in answering crimsons, in lilies, white,
exultant in a chordant life!
Yet, more than this: I strive to grope, with dull, earthy sense,
at her freed life in that earnest land where souls forget to
hunger or to hope, and learn to be. And so thinking, the
certainty of her aim and work and love yonder comes with a new,
vital reality, beside which the story of the yet living men and
women of whom I have told you grows vague and incomplete, like
unguessed riddles. I have no key to solve them with,--no right
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
