| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: tracks were eternal verities, and boards of railroad directors
an omnipotence. The smallest boy or the most secluded
grandam could tell you whether No. 32 had a hot-box last
Tuesday, whether No. 7 was going to put on an extra day-
coach; and the name of the president of the road was familiar
to every breakfast table.
Even in this new era of motors the citizens went down to
the station to see the trains go through. It was their
romance; their only mystery besides mass at the Catholic
Church; and from the trains came lords of the outer world--
traveling salesmen with piping on their waistcoats, and visiting
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: which Stephanie had doubtless climbed a tall poplar to obtain, and the
poor idiot was gently waving it above her sleeping companion, to chase
away the flies and cool the atmosphere.
The peasant-woman gazed at Monsieur Fanjat and the colonel; then, like
an animal which recognizes its master, she turned her head slowly to
the countess, and continued to watch her, without giving any sign of
surprise or intelligence. The air was stifling; the stone bench
glittered in the sunlight; the meadow exhaled to heaven those impish
vapors which dance and dart above the herbage like silvery dust; but
Genevieve seemed not to feel this all-consuming heat.
The colonel pressed the hand of the doctor violently in his own. Tears
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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 Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: blue flame over his wrinkles. He smiled and wiped his brow, that
fearless, terrible brow of his, and at length grew gay like a man
mounted on his hobby.
"How old are you?" I asked.
"Eighty-two."
"How long have you been blind?"
"For very nearly fifty years," he said, and there was that in his tone
which told me that his regret was for something more than his lost
sight, for great power of which he had been robbed.
"Then why do they call you 'the Doge'?" I asked.
"Oh, it is a joke. I am a Venetian noble, and I might have been a doge
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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 King James Bible: and he is quite gone?
SA2 3:25 Thou knowest Abner the son of Ner, that he came to deceive
thee, and to know thy going out and thy coming in, and to know all that
thou doest.
SA2 3:26 And when Joab was come out from David, he sent messengers
after Abner, which brought him again from the well of Sirah: but David
knew it not.
SA2 3:27 And when Abner was returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside in
the gate to speak with him quietly, and smote him there under the fifth
rib, that he died, for the blood of Asahel his brother.
SA2 3:28 And afterward when David heard it, he said, I and my kingdom
King James Bible |
