| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: there lay in this coming labour any pain, any wearing effort, she
clung to it desperately, as if this should banish, it might be,
worse loss. She tried desperately, I say, to clutch the far,
uncertain hope at the end, to make happiness out of it, to give
it to her silent gnawing heart to feed on. She thrust out of
sight all possible life that might have called her true self into
being, and clung to this present shallow duty and shallow reward.
Pitiful and vain so to cling! It is the way of women. As if any
human soul could bury that which might have been, in that which
is!
The Doctor, peering into her thought with sharp, suspicious eyes,
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: the answer which I wrote at the time but probably did not send.
If it went--which is not likely--it went in the form of a copy,
for I find the original still here, pigeonholed with the said letter.
To that kind of letters we all write answers which we do not send,
fearing to hurt where we have no desire to hurt; I have done it many
a time, and this is doubtless a case of the sort.
THE LETTER
X------, California, JUNE 3, 1879.
Mr. S. L. Clemens, HARTFORD, CONN.:
Dear Sir,--You will doubtless be surprised to know who has presumed
to write and ask a favor of you. let your memory go back to your days
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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 The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: tulip!"
"Mynheer van Systens," Rosa continued, with the firmness of
innocence and truth, "your report on the black tulip will,
if you don't hear me, be based on crime or on falsehood. I
implore you, sir, let this Master Boxtel, whom I assert to
be Master Jacob, be brought here before you and me, and I
swear that I will leave him in undisturbed possession of the
tulip if I do not recognise the flower and its holder."
"Well, I declare, here is a proposal," said Van Systens.
"What do you mean?"
"I ask you what can be proved by your recognising them?"
The Black Tulip |
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 Astoria by Washington Irving: traffic, so that in the year 1792, there were twenty-one vessels
under different flags, plying along the coast and trading with
the natives. The greater part of them were American, and owned by
Boston merchants. They generally remained on the coast and about
the adjacent seas, for two years, carrying on as wandering and
adventurous a commerce on the water as did the traders and
trappers on land. Their trade extended along the whole coast from
California to the high northern latitudes. They would run in near
shore, anchor, and wait for the natives to come off in their
canoes with peltries. The trade exhausted at one place, they
would up anchor and off to another. In this way they would
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